Ironically, the current crisis could have one silver lining, if Americans finally opted for an economic strategy that raised taxes on the rich, who have benefited most from the technological advances and the expansion of international commerce, and shared those productivity gains with more people.
That might allow Americans to begin enjoying the future that seemed to be beckoning years back, when people thought that machines would make life easier for humans, not harder.
But many Americans have been sold on the right-wing and neoconservative message that any government effort to address the nation's domestic needs is dreaded "socialism" and that the government's primary -- if not only -- role must be to lavish money on the military to "keep us safe."
That widespread belief system is the result of three decades of having drummed into their heads Ronald Reagan's catchy phrase that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," a theme repeated endlessly on right-wing talk radio, at Fox News and in a host of other conservative media outlets that dominate the American landscape.
Simultaneously, the American Left has done little to counter the Right's propaganda. During those same three decades, progressives invested relatively little in building a message machine that could compete with the Right's giant megaphone. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Left's Media Miscalculation."]
This media asymmetry has had devastating consequences for the American political process. In the 1980s, Reagan had a relatively free hand to go after "big labor"; in the 1990s, working with the triangulating Clinton administration, Republicans pushed through "free-trade agreements" and bank deregulation; and in this decade, Bush slashed taxes for the richest Americans.
The results are now apparent in home foreclosures, bankruptcies, crumbling infrastructure and neglected cities, as Michael Moore graphically demonstrated in his new documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Stalemated
But today's U.S. political/media process doesn't allow these problems to be seriously addressed. The Washington conventional wisdom is still shaped by the powerful right-wing think tanks and defined by the vast right-wing news media. Mainstream journalists mostly go along to save their careers.
Many laid-off "Joe the Plumbers" parrot the Right's fury about the "class warfare" of imposing higher taxes on millionaires. Other rank-and-file Americans tie teabags to their hats and descend on Washington to participate in anti-government rallies, partly organized by corporate interests.
Over several decades of covering Washington's neoconservatives, I have marveled at their cynical but not-entirely-false view of the American people as cattle to be herded, corralled, occasionally stampeded and ultimately led to the slaughterhouse.
The hyped case for war with Iraq was a marvelous example of how the neocons could use lies and deceptions to get young men and women from small towns and big cities across America to go kill -- and be killed by -- troublesome Arabs in the Middle East, the neocons' favorite enemies.
These neocons' propaganda successes are directly attributable to their dominance of the Washington echo chamber, where they craft cleverly framed arguments from their positions at influential think tanks and then watch as their messages are amplified across the country by right-wing radio hosts, Fox News, the Internet and an array of print publications, including mainstream outlets like the Washington Post.
Only now -- as the unemployment lines stretch, as medical insurance is denied, and as the sheriffs show up with foreclosure notices -- are some Americans sensing the end of this strange journey, with the whiff of an unpleasant fate behind the doors of the slaughterhouse.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's "To Save the Republic, Tax the Rich."]
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