Nailed It
Robert Reich -- the little man with the big mind -- nailed it. I need say nothing more.
Why the Republican Crackup is Bad For America
”As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority – predominantly Southern, and mainly rural – that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.”
(Who is Michael Lind?)
”This isn’t to say all Tea Partiers are white, Southern or rural Republicans – only that these characteristics define the epicenter of Tea Party Land.”
”America has had a long history of white Southern radicals who will stop at nothing to get their way – seceding from the Union in 1861, refusing to obey Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s, shutting the government in 1995, and risking the full faith and credit of the United States in 2010.
Newt Gingrich’s recent assertion that public officials aren’t bound to follow the decisions of federal courts derives from the same tradition.”
Yes, I am a Southerner. Trust me when I tell you Professor Reich got all this exactly right. It’s important that people understand this cultural dynamic. Especially Southerners. The people shaping the Republican/Tea Party agenda are the same types that lead the South to embrace Jefferson Davis, George Wallace, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. In short, they are driving the South to embrace another historical disaster -- Civil War, segregation, a political criminal, a war of “choice” -- brought on by another disastrous figure: Newt Gingrich.
Don Brown
December 21, 2011
Comments
Yeah, we need MORE of that. The one federal agency you know best (the FAA) is the regular target of your derision. Do you think HHS is any better? DOE?
Tea party members (and ironically OWS members) look at Washington and see a system that doesn't represent them. Tea Party members want to disband the waste and redundancy and eliminate the taxes that pay for it.
Do you think that there's some sort of magical value in sending tax money from Ohio to Washington, churning it around the Department of Education, then hoping to get some of it back in Ohio to educate our kids?
That's insane, because the Department of Education doesn't educate anyone, local schools do. Instead, keep the $71B in the states and educate people the way Ohio wants to educate them.
You try to imply that Tea Party members want the population uneducated (or pick whatever other federal program). We don't. We just WANT TO ELIMINATE WASHINGTON in most of the governmental functions that could be done at the state and local level, designing a system that best fits US, not the U.S., utilizing Representatives, Councilmen/Councilwomen, and Mayors that will actually give us an ear without us carying a checkbook that has a balance with 9 digits.
Whew! I feel better.
You set up (and knocked down) a straw man in your first sentence. Just sayin'. Then you insinuated half my readers (ie Federal employees) are inept. I assure you they aren't. But you miss the point here. The really good ones have a system (a big part of which is an effective union) that allows us/them to tell you that there are indeed inept and corrupt parts of government. You might have noticed the most effective source of my criticisms of the FAA -- the Inspector General. He is part of the Federal Government and I assure you that he too is not inept.
But you did manage to highlight our main difference: I want our Federal Government to work better and you want to "ELIMINATE WASHINGTON". Referring back to my post; It was "Washington" that saved the Union, defeated George Wallace's ilk, forced Nixon to resign and has shunned George W. Bush. Not a perfect record by any means. A lot of it wasn't pretty in how it was handled. But when you look at the outcome, I (for one) am glad there is a "Washington".
Thanks for writing.
Don Brown
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/12/tsa-insanity-201112
It illustrates what I said, an inept government, not what you alleged I said, inept employees.
I think most public employees try to do a good job, but if the programs they are trying to implement are bogus, the outcome will be as well.
The difference between you and I is that you want the "Federal Government to work better." I wanted the federal government to work better, but I have stopped deluding myself that this will ever occur with the forces of special interests we have, and will continue to have, in the Washington political process.