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By Dave Johnson (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Dave Johnson - Writer

After decades of anti-government speeches claiming that government holds back business, government takes money out of the economy and government is less efficient than corporations, people came to believe that, as Ronald Reagan famously said, "Government is the problem, not the solution." This led to deregulation and budget cutbacks in all areas including education and infrastructure.

If you think about it, government really is what We, the People want it to be. In a democracy we jointly make decisions about the best way to manage our affairs. So saying that corporations do things better is really an anti-democracy message. What they are saying is that organizations run by a few wealthy elites telling everyone else what to do, with the benefits of everyone's work mostly going to those few at the top, is a better way to manage society than to have everyone making the decisions and sharing in the results.

As the financial crisis hits, and the fabric of that pro-big business philosophy is shredding the fabric of our society, we can see clearly just how foolish and destructive the right-wing machine has been to our economic, social and political values. (Not to mention cutting off peanut processing plant regulation and inspection, leading to the current situation of 9 dead and hundreds seriously ill across the country. This is just ONE more example of the consequences of right-wing policies.)

Alone those lines, here is an interesting video, making fun of some of the anti-government propaganda we have heard over the last few decades:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHDVCZp83pY

Click through to Speak Out California

Dave Johnson is a Senior Fellow with the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream working on progressive messaging, and a Fellow at the Commonweal Institute, (more...)

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