Screwed the Undeclared War Against the Middle Class by Thom Hartmann Read Free Book Online
Authors: Thom Hartmann
by themajority of the middle class. Of course, people made jokes about not liking taxes, but they still knew that without taxes there would be no services, and people wanted and needed those services.
Ronald Reagan and his public relations (PR) machine, funded by huge corporations and wealthy people like Joseph Coors, promoted the thought virus—the meme—that taxes are bad and government is bad. Reagan ran as an "outsider" to government (although he was the former governor of California) and even ran for reelection as president "against" government.
Reagan put forward the point of view of the wealthy elite, who felt that they were paying large sums of their vast wealth to help "the little people" have good schools and communities that worked. He changed laws like the Fairness Doctrine, in 1986, so that sycophants like Rush Limbaugh could appear on the public airwaves (with heavy corporate funding) to help convince the "average person" that taxes were bad and government was bad.
Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, which since 1881 had held at bay the aggregation of corporate power, and the media began forming huge monopolies that were then used to reinforce on national TV and radio the perspectives of commentators like Limbaugh. Increasingly, across America two-, three-, and four-newspaper towns became one-newspaper towns, as the era of mergers and acquisitions swept the nation. Labor pages vanished from these new multistate, chain-owned newspapers and were replaced exclusively by "business sections." Labor almost entirely vanished from the American press.
An entire generation has been indoctrinated in this smaller-is-better view to the point where polls showed that when Bill Clinton said "smaller government," people reacted positively. Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), further reducing the power of We the People to regulate business and the media. The result was anotherexplosion of mergers and the near total takeover of the American media and the American workplace by multinational corporations that have little or no allegiance to the USA or the concept of democracy. Today the bottom line rules and workers be damned.
But the cracks are now showing. In 2005 we found out just what happens when you follow Grover Norquist's advice and wash government down the drain. When Hurricane Katrina hit, more than a thousand people drowned in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response because for most of the past twenty-five years cons who don't believe in governance have been systematically dismantling every aspect of our government except that part they can use to punish us or spy on us.
Here's the con game these pundits are playing: "smaller government" doesn't mean fewer taxes for you and me. It doesn't mean fewer politicians. It means government of, by, and for corporations and inherited wealth rather than of, by, and for We the People.
The cons' mantra is "Let the markets decide." But there is no "market" independent of government, so what they are really saying is "Let's make government work to help corporations instead of people. Let's provide all the services corporations need and then make the people foot the bill. Let's let corporations decide how much to pay for labor and when, where, and how to trade."
Thus "con government" is not "smaller government." Under George W. Bush, for example, inflation-adjusted government spending is as high as it was during World War II, at almost $20,000 per person per year. 1
What the cons don't say is that the reason they want a smaller government is because they can then make an enormous amount of money when they privatize formerly governmental functions. They want a power vacuum so that corporations and the rich can step in and profit from things that used to be nonprofit.
Privatizing Social Security will bring a windfall to Wall
Ronald Reagan and his public relations (PR) machine, funded by huge corporations and wealthy people like Joseph Coors, promoted the thought virus—the meme—that taxes are bad and government is bad. Reagan ran as an "outsider" to government (although he was the former governor of California) and even ran for reelection as president "against" government.
Reagan put forward the point of view of the wealthy elite, who felt that they were paying large sums of their vast wealth to help "the little people" have good schools and communities that worked. He changed laws like the Fairness Doctrine, in 1986, so that sycophants like Rush Limbaugh could appear on the public airwaves (with heavy corporate funding) to help convince the "average person" that taxes were bad and government was bad.
Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act, which since 1881 had held at bay the aggregation of corporate power, and the media began forming huge monopolies that were then used to reinforce on national TV and radio the perspectives of commentators like Limbaugh. Increasingly, across America two-, three-, and four-newspaper towns became one-newspaper towns, as the era of mergers and acquisitions swept the nation. Labor pages vanished from these new multistate, chain-owned newspapers and were replaced exclusively by "business sections." Labor almost entirely vanished from the American press.
An entire generation has been indoctrinated in this smaller-is-better view to the point where polls showed that when Bill Clinton said "smaller government," people reacted positively. Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), further reducing the power of We the People to regulate business and the media. The result was anotherexplosion of mergers and the near total takeover of the American media and the American workplace by multinational corporations that have little or no allegiance to the USA or the concept of democracy. Today the bottom line rules and workers be damned.
But the cracks are now showing. In 2005 we found out just what happens when you follow Grover Norquist's advice and wash government down the drain. When Hurricane Katrina hit, more than a thousand people drowned in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response because for most of the past twenty-five years cons who don't believe in governance have been systematically dismantling every aspect of our government except that part they can use to punish us or spy on us.
Here's the con game these pundits are playing: "smaller government" doesn't mean fewer taxes for you and me. It doesn't mean fewer politicians. It means government of, by, and for corporations and inherited wealth rather than of, by, and for We the People.
The cons' mantra is "Let the markets decide." But there is no "market" independent of government, so what they are really saying is "Let's make government work to help corporations instead of people. Let's provide all the services corporations need and then make the people foot the bill. Let's let corporations decide how much to pay for labor and when, where, and how to trade."
Thus "con government" is not "smaller government." Under George W. Bush, for example, inflation-adjusted government spending is as high as it was during World War II, at almost $20,000 per person per year. 1
What the cons don't say is that the reason they want a smaller government is because they can then make an enormous amount of money when they privatize formerly governmental functions. They want a power vacuum so that corporations and the rich can step in and profit from things that used to be nonprofit.
Privatizing Social Security will bring a windfall to Wall
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