How "F" Did Things Get So Screwed Up In This Country?

[TheMastersNemesis]

It did not happen over night. And sadly it started in earnest with Ronald POS Reagan. How will we ever reverse the descent into oblivion. The cuts for the disabled will result in misery for many and early death for some. It is so unconscionable. Why doesn't someone get in Rand Paul"s face when he says something an ruin his day. He needs to be verbally savaged in public. And that includes some other GOPPERS who are so mean and sadistic.

When I lost my foot I got chance to really see suffering like I had not seen before. As much of a challenge as I had I saw others so much worse off. As I posted recently I have seen a guy at least two or three times standing on the highway asking money who had lost his lower right leg. He was on crutches. We gave him some food bars and a little money. In some states I would have gotten arrested for such action. As a nation we seem to have lost our souls and compassion.

Do we go back to the days when sick and disabled people are begging in the streets en masse. Oh I forgot you can't beg or even lay down in public if you are homeless. It is illegal.

At least someone should talk back and give them some verbal shit or something. And FOX will be sure to tell the disabled it is Obama's cuts. Punish Democrats. And Dems seem to be a little too quiet on this subject.

[ND-Dem]

1. K&R

[Sherman A1]

2. It actually started a bit before St. Ronnie

but, you have summed things up rather well.

[Drunken Irishman]

3. It started with Nixon. Reagan was an extension of the foundation Nixon established.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

9. And who gave us Nixon?

... Prescott Bush, Sr. He is the one that managed to get Nixon on the ticket with Ike. So...

[merrily]

5. "Greed, for want of a better word, is good." Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) in Wall Street.

That thinking is how the things you are talking about got so screwed up.

At one time, the fight against that thinking was once more vigorous than it is now. Since Reagan, it's been markedly less vigorous.

I blame the DLC philosophy, which really took hold of the Party after Bubba's election. Although the DLC has technically gone out of existence, the philosophy is very much alive among New Democrats and in ever proliferating think tanks, such as Third Way, Center for American Progress, No Labels, etc. Others may point to the same cause, while still others have a different view.

We can blame Reagan, and things certainly accelerated under him but there have been 14 years of Democratic Presidents since Reagan, and counting. Dismantling of the New Deal began when FDR was still in office, participated in by Democratic Congresses and Presidents as well as by Republican Presidents and Congresses. Most of the Great Society/War on Poverty met with a similar fate. Deregulation, which people like to hang on Reagan, began under Nixon or Ford and continued under every Republican and Democratic President since, including Obama.

I don't really care which Party blames the other for what actions. I think people are finally asking for more and better and I think both Republicans and Democrats hear it. Whether hearing it will cause them to change or just give lip service to changing, I have no idea yet.

I am so very sorry about your foot.

[world wide wally]

6. You said it yourself,

"As a nation we seem to have lost our souls and compassion."

Sad, but true

[Revanchist]

7. It started with the robber barons and others

during the industrial revolution in the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s, took a slight down tick during the civil war, started up again with the increase in capitalism during the beginning of the twentieth century till the stock market collapse, received some bruises during the new deal (although big business still had somewhat of a hold on Congress) and started to pick up steam again during the 1950s.

Oh, and those of you who complain that Wall Street and the 1% are basically picking and buying our candidates? Don't forget that everything old is new again.



So the question shouldn't be "how the F did things get so screwed up in this county?" The question is "when wasn't things screwed up in this country?"

[AZ Progressive]

8. Everything changed in the early 70's

Not just the Nixon issue but also Big Business uniting against the threat of regulation and people power, the elites at the trilateral commission determined that educated people protested more, and basically the establishment, the capitalist system, decided to fight back aggressively. Also in the early 70's was the recession of 1974, that ended the almost 30 year postwar economic boom, and America was losing its economic edge to other countries that already fully recovered from WWII. From then on, labor and regulation were used as the scapegoat for the economy's woes.

[obxhead]

10. I think our real trouble started when Democrats started embracing

Rayguns ideas and philosophy's.

The hard right turn by the majority of dems has really screwed us over for good.

[Enthusiast]

11. You can measure a states progress toward Fascism precisely by the way they treat

the disabled, the poor and the elderly.

That is simply a fact.

Make no mistake about it. The USA is making rapid movement toward Fascism.

We should demand that every Democratic office holder speak out against cuts in social programs, all social programs. Those that will not demonstrate their solidarity with us can simply go get fucked.

We know what the Republican are. It is of little use to expect them to change. But we can demand that Democrats act like Democrats.

I don't like NAZIs.

[Demeter]

12. I think it actively started with 3 assassinations: JFK, RFK, MLK

We haven't been functional since then.

[Scuba]

15. Yep.

[TheMastersNemesis]

21. I Have Felt These Assassinations Were Related. The Real Culprits Remain Hidden.

[hifiguy]

26. Much truth in this.

Funny how only comparative lefties like them (and Malcolm X) were the only significant political casualties of the 1960s. Makes you say 'hmmmmmm" doesn't it?

[Cha]

13. SCOTUS and $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Koch$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Skidmore]

14. When workers started buying the notion that everyone could be management

and have a desk job and the MBA became the degree to pursue.

[GliderGuider]

16. The 1971 Powell Memo set the stage for St. Ronnie a decade later

Read it and weep.

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

[bob4460]

17. 11/22/1963

The day the tide turned.

[Renew Deal]

18. A few people decided it would be fun to vote for Nader.

[Triana]

19. WE LET IT. n/t

[stillwaiting]

20. Americans don't pay attention to what goes on in government.

Way too many have FAILED their civic responsibility in a nation so many think is the "Greatest country in the World".

I guess they don't think they need to do much to keep it the greatest. That will just take care of itself.

Since so many don't pay attention, and so many also don't want to (or refuse to) talk about what happens in government they are very susceptible to talking points and propaganda. To be clear, most Americans have absolutely NO IDEA what's going on in their local, state, and the federal governments. How in the world are we expecting this so-called democracy to fix what's been happening to us for the last 3 to 4 decades?

There's a chance that when people do rise up it will be in support of far right-wing politicians unfortunately for exactly that reason. People just don't have a clue what's been happening or what elected politicians actually do once elected. It's a huge problem.

[FiveGoodMen]

22. Every time we said "This is unacceptable -- this is wrong"

A bunch of our own party members said:

1) I suppose you'd rather have so and so?

2) Our government is built on compromise and if the other side won't compromise with us, we'll show them we're the bigger people by ... handing them everything they want and calling that compromise.

It's still going on at this site today.

Those people have betrayed our country.

They are why we're fucked up.

[enough]

23. Mass corporate media. Fits with the timeline mentioned in many of the above replies. (nt)

[KingCharlemagne]

24. When Reagan busted PATCO in 1981 and the AFL-CIO and Dems did

absolutlely nothing about it. Imagine, a POTUS busting a union and getting away with it. (Dems at the time had majorities in both the House and the Senate.)

[hifiguy]

25. Google "The Powell Memorandum"

and read it. It started there, but went far, far beyond what Lewis Powell ever imagined and became the blueprint for the New Fascism we see being imposed from above today. Feudal economics combined with a modern, high-tech propaganda/police state.