We used to make big things in the US, often with direct government investment. Whether it was the federal highway system, the Sears Tower, or the Golden Gate Bridge -- these were not small undertakings. It was a proven method of creating jobs and wealth, as well as a source of national pride.
These days, it's the historical blindness and hatred of any spending contained in a philosophy that underpins simplistic calls for "austerity." Contained in budgets written by small-minded men such as Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, it has seen corporate cybernetic organisms posing as legislators do what once would have been unthinkable: pave the way for Chinese exceptionalism.
US slipping in quality-of-life indicators
Yet perhaps right-wingers' work to undermine America is nowhere as evident as it is in the everyday indicators of how we are doing as a country. Whether it is the World Health Organization's ranking the US in 37th place, our impressive 33rd place in children's ability to navigate math and science, or 39th place in our environmental quality (we're still two spots ahead of Cuba!), I simply don't understand how one can claim to love the US and blithely ignore or work to exacerbate these indicators by gutting government every day.
But then again, what should we expect from a movement whose leaders, such as that dimwitted dolt known as Texas Governor Rick Perry, openly discuss secession? Or, as I pointed out in last week's column, the blood diamond-accruing conman Pat Robertson, who has wished Sodom-like destruction on the United States, because gay couples in New York now have the right to marry?
Secession? Destruction? There used to be a term to describe people who wished these tragedies would befall their own country. Today that term is "Republican presidential candidate," whether from the recent past (Robertson in 1988) and potentially -- God help us -- the future (Perry in 2012).
Lest one think this list is biased, I have not even gone into the details of the outing of an undercover CIA agent (see Karl Rove) or the Right's current crusade to make the US default on its debt (and Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's incentive to profit off of this, as he has shorted US treasury bonds in his personal investment portfolio).
Humorist and writer Leo Rosten once said that "a conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead". Today, however, the love for radicals and radicalism is alive and kicking on the Right, and sadly for the US, it doesn't seem ready to die anytime soon.
Cross-posted from Al Jazeera(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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