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Two Multibillionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit
For example, if you suspect that America's economy, politics, government, media, judiciary and practically every other system has been wired to favor corporate interests over every other interest in our country, you're deducing, not hallucinating. From the infamous Wall Street bailout to the Supreme Court's shameful decree that corporations have more political rights than humans, we see again and again that corporate might overwhelms what's right.
This is not by accident, but by the deliberate, relentless efforts of corporatists to bend our nation's institutions to their will. Take one huge corporation you've probably never heard of, even though your consumer dollars are financing its right-wing agenda.
Do you buy Northern tissue, Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups or Vanity Fair napkins? These well-known brands are owned and produced by Koch Industries (pronounced "coke") in Wichita, Kan. Koch is also a major producer of oil, gas, timber, coal, cattle, refined petroleum, asphalt, polyethylene plastic ... and much, much more.
Charles and David Koch, who control this family-owned empire, have a net worth of $14 billion each, ranking both in a tie for the 19th richest person on the planet. They boast of being "self-made" billionaires, though they had a little help from Daddy. Fred Koch started this namesake business, and his sons got a leg up on their climb to billionairedom by inheriting Fred's company. They also inherited something else: a burning ideological commitment to right-wing politics (Daddy Fred helped found the John Birch Society).
Charles and David have used the wealth they draw from Koch Industries to fuel a network of three Koch Family Foundations, which have set up and financed a secretive army of political operatives dedicated to achieving the brothers' antigovernment, corporate-controlled vision for America.
This force includes national and state-level think tanks, Astroturf front groups, academic shills, university centers, political-training programs, fundraising clearinghouses, publications, lobbyists and various other units useful to their ideological cause. They spend freely on dozens of ideologically grounded right-wing groups to influence schoolteachers and high-school curricula, state and federal judges, lawyers and legal scholars, conservative policy thinkers and media producers, city-council candidates and local party activists.
Their aim is to shove the country's national debate to the hard right, discombobulate the public's progressive wishes, and alter government policies to advance corporate interests generally and the Kochs' own interests specifically.
Americans for Prosperity, the third-largest recipient of Koch foundation largesse, is the brothers' overtly political unit. Essentially, it is a front group for mass-producing front groups. Much like McDonald's churns out Big Mac franchises, AFP can pop out a grass-rootsy-looking, cookie-cutter political operation on demand. Its menu includes such garnishes as hoked-up studies, alarmist talking points, deceptive attack ads, divisive hate messages, celebrity and religious endorsers, and a menagerie of media stunts.
Consider the "tea bag" rebellion. No one professes more hatred for the two-party, business-as-usual political system in Washington than those angry Americans who're caught up in the tea-bag rallies. Yet unbeknownst to most of the mad-as-hellers who have showed up, it was AFP's Republican-tied lobbyists and political functionaries who cynically financed, organized and orchestrated the very first tea-bag protest. AFP has steadily co-opted the tea-bag faction to make it a front for the corporate agenda, and many of the tea-bag groups have devolved into subsidiaries of the Republican Party.
Indeed, AFP has become the Astroturf-to-Go Store, fabricating and spreading fake grass-roots organizations all across the country, including Patients United Now (anti-health care reform), Hot Air Tour (anti-global warming), Free Our Energy (pro-offshore drilling), No Stimulus (tried to kill Obama's economic recovery plan) and Save My Ballot Tour (tries to keep workers from joining unions).
It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you - and they are! While such corporate elites as the Kochs are a tiny minority of Americans, they are able to hide their own selfish agenda behind front groups, surreptitiously skewing our public debate, agenda and policies to serve themselves. Ultimately, what they are out to get is nothing less than America's essential uniting ethic of the common good, replacing our democracy with their corporate kleptocracy.
137 Comments so far
Show AllMeet the Robber Barons of our time.
SOooooo what you are saying is they are good at business and are republicans. How does that make them bad?
You stinky liberals have a strange grasp on reality. Go smoke your peace pipe hippy
They aren't bad. A system that allows a few - by virtue of having more capital - to control the lives of the many is clearly tyrannical. You are not intending to promote tyranny, are you?
"Stinky liberals?" "Go smoke your peace pipe hippy?" Do you lack confidence in your own position and ability to argue it to such an extent that you need to throw that silly stuff out? Give it your best shot, and people here will try to help you improve your skills and won't jump all over you, so don't be so afraid.
Ah....Yet another Barbarian revels itself.
Being "good at business" doesn't "make them bad" (Jesus, do you THINK like this?). Being crooks does. They were convicted of defrauding oil producers with their pipeline business. And, more to the point, if you're going to take a position on some policy matter, be honest! Don't hide behind phony "grass-roots" organizations and other dishonest schemes. Trolls will have a hard time w/that point since it presumes an appreciation of honesty. Being scheming dishonest manipulators... THAT makes them "bad".
No, what makes them "bad" is that they are throwing money around to purposely rob other CITIZENS of their right of self determination. THESE are the guys who are behind YOU losing your job, your home, your right to be left alone by the gov't, the whole lot. This is the pair of assholes that are making sure that you NEVER get a chance to better yourself. These two are responsible for a HUGE part of where we are at this point. What about it DON'T you see? If this was George Soros, you would be screaming your eyeballs out of your head.
These two are the poster boys for election reform. If there was EVER a reason to institute a system of PUBLICLY financed elections, I don't know what it will take.
BTW, the "insult" at the end of your comment shows that you yourself have NOTHING gong for you and you insist on dragging everyone else even further down that you have already. You righties have destroyed damn near everything you've touched in the last 30 years, isn't THAT enough for you? You have to TRY to be insulting as well?
We on the "left" deal in facts. You know, like numbers and actual information. You on the right are the ones with a strange idea of reality. When your candidates are talking about making us all pray for health care, or another who insists that we outlaw masturbation, and another who insists that we need to give big business even MORE breaks (when 75% of fortune 500 companies pay NOTHING in taxes to this country), when you all seem to be unaware that you are doing the work of those who have destroyed the country, I would say that it's YOU who has a strange idea of reality.
If you have a point (OTHER than the one under your hair), then SAY it. You don't have to express your unbridled, irrational hatred of your fellow AMERICAN CITIZENS, and to be honest, it diminishes everything else you say.It just makes you look like a brain dead, uninformed right wing dip shit. I will decline calling you one for now, but I do have my suspicions.
Got any ANSWERS to the problems this country has right now? I mean OTHER than kissing more rich person ass. That's done SO well for us for the last 30 FREAKING years. What do you have to offer to make the country BETTER? Nothing? Why am I not surprised? And why the hell are you so mad at US, when you SHOULD be mad as hell at your own party who BROUGHT you here? WE didn't steal your rights, your party did that. WE didn't set up laws so they could spy on you without warrants, YOUR party did that. WE didn't ignore over 60 warnings to get us attacked on our own soil, it was YOUR president who did that. It wasn't US who put forth an over 1,000 page "patriot act" within weeks of 9-11, proving that they had it waiting in the wings all along, it was YOUR party that did that. WE gave you a budget surplus, and were well on the way to paying off the debt, it was YOUR party that drove that up past the 5 trillion mark with more in the wings waiting to do even more damage.
And you want to come here and express hatred for those who are in the same boat as you are, thanks to YOUR party? And still you have the gall to call US names? Look in the mirror if you want to know who to blame this country's problems on. And while you're at it, look to the Koch brothers, as they are the ones who are financing this rush to hell the country is on. Hate them, we're NOT your enemy. We are getting screwed just as much as you are. Only thing is that WE didn't want it, it got shoved on us by those like you. Maybe it's WE who should be hating YOU openly.
Have a REALLY nice day.
That's more words than I can read...You win I guess.
PS..the south will prevail!!
Pfft, "Today" is just a right-wing troll, everyone needs to just ignore his idiocy instead of responding. He has the attention-span of a coffee-table (he even admits to not being able to read anything longer than a paragraph), and the verbiage of a typical rethuglican neanderthal. Just ignore him. He'll eventually head back over to Beck and Rush's websites.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
Beck and Rush have a website??? What is it?? I'm veeerrryy interested.
Alright fine, I won't buy Northern tissue since these guys are jerks. I will buy it for the great quality and affordable pricing though.
Gee, admitting early on that you don't have the brains it takes to read a cereal box? How atypical. And I thought you guys were the ones with intelligence. I'll try to keep it short.
So they south will prevail? Then what? I lived 30 miles away from Mobile for a year and a half. Spent a lot of time among people who didn't have the education level it takes to keep breathing. If what you intend is to bring that level of closed mindedness, fear, and hate to the rest of us, I will have to say no thanks. Been there, don't want to do it again.
But really, then what? What exactly do you intend once you "prevail"? What do you intend to do to get the economy going? What about bringing our jobs back and getting wages up to where people can live on them again? What about health care for all? What do you have for answers for the country's problems? Or are you, like we all suspect, just another idiot who likes to insult, never contribute, and just tear down everything he touches? How very republican of you. Prove me wrong. What are your ideas? Give us some answers. Or shut the hell up.
Settle down draft dodging hippies...I'm not actually from the south. I just know that's how you lame liberals see anyone who opposes the narrow mindedness or your own jerk opinions.
If I were in charge of $800 billion stimulus and were looking at what I know would improve the economy.. innovations and inventions. When I got out of college I found the smartest people in the country had nothing to do with their intelligence and ideas. If there was a place where high end engineering college students could go to implement prototypes of their inventions mixed with the business students and manufacturing students, then we would have new revolutions that make this country great. There have been 2 - the auto industry and the internet. We need another one to make us great again.
But Obama won't read my letters I send and will just pay people to dig a hole and fill it back in and he actually thinks that is how to run a successful country. I call it bankrupting AMERICA
There is a place where "high end engineering college students could go to implement prototypes of their inventions mixed with the business students and manufacturing students." They are called colleges and universities, and they require public funding to perform the role you are describing here.
The auto industry and the Internet are the only two products of that system that you can think of?
Connecting the dots, implementing a historical perspective, applying innovations for the benefit of the general public, and creating the public infrastructure that would support engineering minds such as yours really does require "draft dodging hippies" - liberal arts students and graduates.
This guy is probably in high school and bored of pretending to be an adult while he hangs on chat sites. I guess he can serve as the comic relief, not his comments but when you think about his life.
The south will prevail, prevail how? Man, no offense but you sound way out there.
Here. here! send the carpetbagging yankees back home! Confederacy Forever!
(sarcasm)
>^^<
" . . . more words than I can read."
How telling.
I wonder how much they paid in taxes or are all these front groups tax deductible? They should at least pay as much in taxes as they do lobbying-I bet that would raise revenues!
RR
Today: you make the classic mistake of associating money and power with greatness. More often then not it is simply not so. Power and money can buy a lot of things, people and even ideas and they obviously seem to own you.
True human greatness comes from courage, and inner moral compass, and real humanity towards others.
So step up to the plate and take a swing.... you might get on base and become a player.
As long as Americans are sucking up that powder.. What can be done? Schools no longer teach history. Our MSM encurages only easy answers. So they throw money around, at least it gives devious right-wing cranks jobs, they need to eat too, them and their six child familes.
In this case I just can't find fault with the source. it's the fools eating the used road-kill that are to blame.
Restore the Poll Tax! voting is too important to allow just anyone to do it!
>^^<
Flagged SRSLY! certinally not a personall attack, Just showing his wits or lack thereof.
>^^<
Today September 8th, 2010 2:50 pm, after reading this and your other posts on this thread, it appears you could be a paid troll. Perhaps you're collecting a paycheck from some organization funded by the Koch Brothers to post this drivel to progressive websites. (Unfortunately, there is no balance here -- conservative websites habitually ban anyone who even mildly disagrees with their point of view after one comment, and then delete the comment.) Your introduction to true reality will be when they find someone to do your job cheaper and toss you unceremoniously out the door, without pension or benefits. I would like to hear to hear your opinion of the Koch's business acumen then, as you sit on your couch with a cocktail wondering where the hell you're going to find work in 'today's' corporate, Republican-sanctioned, 'welfare for the rich' economy. Maybe you can laugh uproariously then at how you cleverly riled up the liberals with your outrageous comments back in the day when you had a job. Or you might grow a brain and figure out that it wasn't the stupid liberal dope-smoking hippies that ruined your country -- it was the wealthy flag-waving corporate conservative 'patriots' like the Koch's. Such a stunning realization would no doubt lead you to smoke a joint or two, and who can blame you? I mean except for some miserable neocon who hasn't figured things out yet, such as yourself as you are now.
The problem that is created with foolish comments such as "Today" makes is that if we ignore them they taunt us with not having a response, but because their comments are so, well, stupid, really, our responses sound shrill and over the top. Still, I think it best to ignore them, as one would a child who wants attention from the grownups at the table. He will keep reading the posts in search of the rise he hopes to get and maybe in doing so he will learn something. I sort of doubt it, though.
So...how many of you are there over at CIA HQ infesting the internet with your BS?
forebiddeninfo September 10th, 2010 12:10 am, it isn't the CIA that's doing the trolling or infesting; before the last election the GOP set up an offshoot company to 1) post blogs at progressive sites pretending to be progressives angry at Obama and the Dems to try and split Dem voters off to a third party candidate or discourage them from voting entirely; 2) spread doubt and fear on the left and right by using divide-and-conquer propaganda techniques; 3) distract readers at progressive sites by insulting them and making them waste energy 'chasing the troll'; and 4) mounting massive email campaigns repeating specious 'memes' so often that most casual readers -- and most Americans are casual readers, at best -- take them as truth, since they've seen the same material repeatedly. It's basically Goebbels' 'Big Lie' technique as applied to the Internet. It hasn't worked completely yet regarding Obama's nationality or religion, but that's coming along gradually. It has worked in casting Obama as a 'Chicago Machine' politician -- in reality, he's a liberal from Hyde Park -- who believes in some undefined 'black liberation theology' which is pure nonsense. Also part of the menu is the oft-repeated GOP theme that none of his programs have worked. 'Cash For Clunkers,' keeping union autoworkers in their jobs by bailing out GM and Chrysler, and requiring health insurance companies to continue paying for patients with 'pre-existing conditions' are just three examples of successful programs advocated by Obama.
I'm not defending him beyond that, since there are many things I'd criticize that Obama has done, but facts are facts.
Nevermind...
What is wrong with hippies smoking peace pipes anyway. You know the whole "60's-70's "movement" to stop the war, clean up the environment, egalitarianism, civil rights....all the was good about that movement was falsely tarred by Nixon who started the phoney war on drugs which should be legal as the most dangerous ones are alcohol and tobacco ( though not commericalized like they would be under capitalism, I don't even think alcohol should be sold commercially with all the marketing bs) Anyway Nixon used drugs to try to deligitimate all that was good about the movement so to speak. They are still at it as that silly comment illustrates. Pretty wild how a lie can survive the truth for dam near 50 years in this day and age isn't it? That should tell us something, like the war on drugs is an ideological construct like the war on terror to justify oppression and all manner of malfescence. Lies are very powerful indeed when they support the status quo they can live seeminly forever-or at least until the power that supported by them topple-even then it takes time for the truth to get out as this depends on what replaces the former status quo-things could go from bad to worse-an outright Fascist dictatorship is not out of the question.
RR
I won't be buying Northern tissue ever again just on principle, but really how much difference will it make? Look how much money these guys have already amassed.
Yea I love Northern Tissue. I'll remember them as I wipe with it :) Maybe they can market some with their smiling faces on it.
P.S. This is America wher any clown with a million $$ is entilted to his opinion.
(I wish that was sarcasm)
>^^<
My wife and I can no longer afford to buy Northern Tissue.
Am I the only one buying recycled toilet paper?
If you are not buying upscale products, how do you expect to ever be making the right choices, and how can you boycott things that you can't afford to buy anyway? You will never cut it as a progressive at this rate!
Questions for everyone: how can people vote with their dollars when they don't have any? How can people go organic when they can barely afford food? How are people supposed to be worried about their personal values and personal choices when they are drowning? How are people supposed to ride bikes when they cannot get housing and work any closer than 20 or 30 miles apart? When the job will not pay enough to cover the cost of the housing?
And the most important question: why do progressives get to vote their personal values, but working stiffs and blue collar people are expected to vote their pocketbook and are seen as stupid when they don't? Why are poor people and minority people supposed to vote in their own base self-interest, while progressives get to characterize their own politics as high and lofty things such as "personal moral values" and "belief systems" and "changing the world?"
Does it ever occur to anyone that the main reason people vote Republican or don't vote at all is as an expression of resistance and opposition to the "belief systems" and "personal values" and "right choices" people - that they can sniff out the arrogant, condescending and aristocratic overtones of all of that a mile away? The Republicans know this. They constantly play on it with great success.
The thing is you will never find Northern tissue in a corporate run company unless it is a lower quality and made in China. It is made and marketed to the general population.
Yes, cast your vote in the marketplace. While the November election you may vote in is rigged, the vote you cast in the marketplace is the only one that counts.
I know it may not seem like much, but everyone really should be buying paper products made from recycled paper from companies like Seventh Generation. Also, boycott all fast food places and factory farm meat and buy local produce, etc.
Carefull, I think the competion is made in China. I know some comes from Mexico. Buy American!
>^^<
They can and do simply re-label the product (such as supermarket store-brands) and you will never know it.
There is a bigger issue here: when did we as consumers agree to fund political positions we abhor? I just wanted to wipe my hands, and suddenly I'm agreeing with Tea Party positions.
We need to get money out of politics. The way our one-person-one-vote democracy was supposed to work, was by creation of laws to serve as a check on our one-dollar-one-vote capitalism. Instead, the 'check' runs the other way.
I want my country back.
In last year's August town meetings the literature on the tea bagger's side all had "American's for Prosperity" stamped on it. "Do you want government run health care?" they chanted. "Do you trust corporations to run your health care?" I shouted back. "We're not run by anyone." they shouted in response--waving their "Americans for Prosperity" sheets advocating establishing health care savings accounts and negotiating prices for Doctor's services directly.. That's certainly how the Koch Brothers do it. But those on the other side are not dupes, they eagerly eat up the propaganda and are insulted if anyone suggests to them that they are being manipulated. Oh, the other place you'll see these people is at free health care clinics. Nothing wrong with charity is there.
Yeah, sure, someone with a child with deadly cancer will gladly shop around for the best and cheapest deal on an oncologist and surgeon, and the various surgical and chemo supplies. I hear the cheapest oncologists and oncological surgical specialists can be found at Wal Mart.
Yes - the inability for a majority of USAns to see that they are being made for chumps is a big factor in the advance or these reactionary interests.
In the recent controversy over the Nike WVU Football team uniforms - being promoted in the name of Coal and the 29 "fallen heroes" at the UBB mine, few of the West-Virginian commeters in the Gazette's coal tatoo blog could see that the memory of the 29 dead was being dishonored in the name of Nike's crass commercialism. Instead, it was those like me, attacking Nike's crass marketeering over the bodies of the dead miners, who were accused of dishonoring those dead.
When a majority of USAns are so utterly clueless as to their own duping that they confuse a crass advertizing campaign for something noble, things look pretty hopeless, don't they?
And so they have marked their entire family for execution.
Move to South America or Europe where some leftist activity still exists.
Man it's just that the JackBoots and starched uniforms itch! and I really hate armbands. and remembering the political slogan of the day.
Fashism sucks
>^^<
"Ultimately, what they are out to get is nothing less than America's essential uniting ethic of the common good, replacing our democracy with their corporate kleptocracy."
They've already done what they're "out to get," Jim. We haven't had a democracy for at least 50 years, though you keep insisting it's somehow endangered by the Kochs and their corporate ilk. They don't need to replace what doesn't exist! The kleptocracy managed by the Kochs, Bill Gates, Buffett, and several hundred other zillionaire families killed the brief experiment in democracy long ago. The question is, can we banish them, disempower them, and thus begin to create a true democracy? So long as their system is in place (capitalism), they will continue running things, and running us into our graves, after they've made most of our lives barely worth the bother of living them. But Hightower doesn't really challenge capitalism, he only want to regulate it. Good luck with that. The Kochs won't let it happen, and neither will their puppets in Washington.
Hello Ephraim,
Yesterday in France over 2 1/2 million workers went on general strike and took to the streets. Six different union federations all agreed to make it happen. The cause? President Sarkozy wants to raise the age of retirement from 60 to 62, as part of the general austerity program.
When we in the US can put 8 million workers (our population equivalent) in the streets over pensions, THEN an end to capitalism might begin to be on the agenda. But in the meantime, let's not blame people like Hightower for not yet leaping past what is socially possible here. When things heat up, as they will, he's very likely to come around.
You are entirely right, though, about the Kochs and company not allowing a regulated capitalism. And even if we did have another New Deal, sooner or later the capitalists would cycle back to where they have veto power over everything. That's what the capitalists in Europe are striving for now. As Marx said, it's socialism or barbarism. What a shame that so many generations have had to learn that lesson.
He should be leading, assembling and writing the powerful left wing narrative, not "coming around" once the "peasants" are in the streets doing the dirty work.
We have had about enough of liberals and progressives "being good people" who "have their heart in the right place" and who are "potential friends and allies" and therefore above reproach or criticism, playing it cautious and waiting for "the people to rise up" so they can then get out in front of the march. That is aristocratic, cowardly and hypocritical.
Hello Two,
If you are going to lead the revolution with only those people who have gone beyond capitalism in 2010, you are going to be waiting for a long, long time.
And if we are not going to recruit militants from among the "liberals and progressives" you sneer at now, who are we going to recruit? The Tea Party?
I would much rather live in Hightower's world than the one we have now; but actually I shouldn't have said "He will come around." I think that if presented with a really democratic socialism, Hightower would be ready now; although I don't know him well enough to be able to quote chapter and verse. Meanwhile, making people aware of the details of our oppression is an invaluable service. And sneering at our allies and potential allies is a disservice.
Time will tell.
Criticizing people's ideas is not "sneering at allies and potential allies." You express your views, I express mine. You are "sneering" at a "potential friend and ally" every bit as much as I am. It is called a disagreement, and robbing the readers of the opportunity to hear both points of view - because the people with whom you disagree are allegedly "sneering" or are "alienating" people or are otherwise bad and wrong, all of which is an attack on the messenger rather than a response to the message - would be the real disservice.
Hightower has done a lot of good work. I have no idea why he has become a work within the system moderate. I suspect that just as with so many people, the Palin specter et al has scared him into timidity and he seeks refuge in the safe harbor of liberal politics as usual.
Hightower is making people aware of the effects of our oppression, not the causes.
Hello Two,
Good for you. You have moderated your comments to: "Hightower is making people aware of the effects of our oppression, not the causes." That is a criticism. Although I am not sure if it is entirely true. Talking about two super capitalists secretly controlling public opinion is beginning to talk about cause.
But "waiting for 'the people to rise up' so they can then get out in front of the march. That is aristocratic, cowardly and hypocritical" - that, I'm afraid, is more of a sneer than a criticism.
The more you stick to criticism without a hint of sneer, the more influence you will have (which is fine with me) and the more we will be able to debate issues on the merits.
Warm regards, Laurence
That has not been my experience. People - liberal and progressive intellectuals - do not need to be persuaded or sold or marketed, they need to be shaken up, and somewhat jarring and abrupt language is the most effective for doing that.
Historically, the Left has always been told to be polite, to tone it down, to not alienate "potential friends and allies" (which is code words for "successful and important people with whom we should curry favor"), told that "it is not what you are saying I object to, but the way you are saying it." That is never true. Demands for leftists to be "polite" and "courteous" really means be deferential and subservient, respect your betters, and those demands are not politically neutral by any means.
Only those in the ruling class, and their henchmen and mouthpieces, can afford to speak in cultivated and modulated tones. The people who are persecuted and suffering - the people with whom we should be siding, not the successful and beautiful and accomplished people - need to scream to be heard, and they should scream, and we should be screaming right along with them. You may "alienate" some of the more sophisticated and gentrified people by doing that - about 10% of the population at the most - but you will get rousing cheers and support from the other 90%. And is it not the other 90% for whom we fight?
Liberals hang a lovely sign out front of headquarters - "we defend the poor, the downtrodden, the persecuted, the suffering" - and then complain bitterly when the rabble actually shows up and tracks mud on the beautiful imported carpet.
Get rid of that carpet, or take that down that sign.
If not for "liberal, progressive" thinking and social innovation we would still be like the gorilla in the movie, 2001, growling and waving that bone over our heads.
Most individuals who try to "nail" others with labels are clueless as to what the other is thinking or believes...they use political, "knee-jerk" reactions to their opinions no matter what the subject or the individual.....
Was:
Giving the vote to women, "stupid, reactionary, idiotic"...etc?
Was developing a system of Social Security to enable the elderly to have a modicum of decency in old age instead of living in the streets, impoverished, hungry, diseased, etc?
Was instituting a level playing field for labor (National Labor Relations Act) to deal with the rape of their lives by companies/corporations that pitted race, poverty, ignorance etc against the ability of individuals to gather together to fight and better their lives?
Is it stupid to have unemployment insurance for those who through no fault of their own are cast into the streets every time the moguls of finance along with the corrupt politicians deem it unprofitable to keep them employed....how so short-sighted because as we see today, no jobs, no consumption...no profits...etc......
Is/was it stupid to have a Civil Rights Act to try to level the field for the entrenched racism that was live and well at the birth of this nation?
Is/was it to the detriment of yourself, your family etc., to have laws (trying to) to prevent manufacturers, businesses, corporations from "crapping all over our doorsteps" by polluting our food, air, rivers, oceans, etc?
(Even though they have found a way to pollute our airwaves with stupid, innocuous, offensive, downright idiotic themes to peddle their consumer opium?)
Is/was it stupid to dream of a public education system that would help ALL citizens/our children to have a good education from the lowest grade THROUGH A COLLEGE DEGREE, so as to have a citizenry that might have a good chance of dreaming of those innovations that help produce jobs?
The list is endless....for those who wish to label "dreamers", "progressives" or any other individuals who dream of a better society instead of one that is based on maniacal consumerism, false promises by a corrupt legal system because there are too many billionaires with inherited wealth that wish to rule..........We don't need thinkers that want to drag us back into the dark ages......been there, done that.
Lastly, it is/was (do the research, it might help you to broaden your mind) pointedly a program instituted in the 1980's by the Reagan administration to, "....crush labor to a world level playing field" in order for American corporations to compete in a world level market...they have been quite successful....
But, they have stumbled through outright greed and corruption.
The "conservatives" precipitated the march into two criminal, brutal wars in this 21st Century, plunged this country not only into outright murderousness, but bankrupted it also with it's continuing policies of trying to destroy all those progressive amenities to our lives fought and bled for over the many decades of this internal dispute as to what constitutes a decent, progressive society.
There was a time in the recent past when "conservative" stood for many decent thinking ways of how to build a society. That time has passed; again pointedly since the Reagan administration....after that all bets were off......
The quote above by another commenter about fascism coming wrapped in the flag and led by a cross (para), Sinclair Lewis is appropriate; right on.....
Read: "Friendly Fascism" Bertram Gross 1980.....
I no longer "....weep for my country". I weep for the ignorance of its people.
No, it is not stupid to dream of those things. It is stupid not to fight for them, and it is stupid to frame the whole political discussion in partisan electoral terms - Democrats ("dirty draft-dodging hippies") versus Republicans ("redneck fundy tea baggers.")
The advances you are talking about did not come from progressive and liberal thinking, they came from militant left wing organizations outside of the liberal versus conservative debate, outside of partisan electoral politics, and from powerful and militant organized Labor.
Liberal and progressive thinking comes after the fact, and usually after the battles have been won. "Oh, yeah we are for those good things." Millions of modern liberals and Democrats NOW support the New Deal, yet fight against the very politics today that were responsible for the New Deal back then.