Two things on this.
1) This word “Neo-liberalism” is driving me crazy. It is impossible to say what it really means and it confuses the hell out of the issue. It does not mean anything to do with what Americans are used to call “Liberalism” which grew out of the Progressive movement from the turn of the 20th century. I think it is going way back to the English liberalism of John Stuart Mill which means more like “liberal” as in “free” – free markets, libertarianism, etc.. Don’t use that word any more.
2) The last liberal president was Lyndon Johnson. He was a democrat because he was a southerner (Democrats were pro-confederate) and because FDR was a Democrat (only because cousin Theodore was a Republican and he wanted to be differentiated from him). Johnson made the extremely brave but fatal decision (for the Democratic party) to pass the Civil Rights act of 1964. He knew that in doing this he was losing the south for the democrats for the next generation. When Goldwater lost in 1964, carrying only the states of the old confederacy the Republican Southern Strategy was born.
All of Johnson’s “liberal” programs were then tainted as being for black people. The racist democrats north and south voted for Nixon and later became republicans. The Republican party went from being the party of Lincoln and civil rights to being the party of being anti-black, anti-welfare, anti-federal aid to education, anti-progressive supreme court, etc, etc.. The democrats were losing big-time and so they turned to southern conservative democrats and to disengage from all “liberal”, “welfare”, “civil rights”, “affirmative action”, “federal education”, etc, etc..
Carter did some of this, but Clinton made it his all consuming goal and finally accomplished it. He killed “welfare” as an issue that could be used to beat up democrats. The “Blue Dogs” were not strays, but pedigreed new democrat show dogs. Their job was to block and kill off any remnants of the LBJ “liberal” thinking in the Democrat party. They are succeeding as designed and planned.
What was the design of Rahm Emanuel’s congressional election strategy? What is the source of the pulsing energy of the Tea Party? Why does Mr. Obama’s history pass over Kennedy and LBJ and begin with Reagan as the one who “stabilized” and “transformed” the sixties and seventies, that chaotic period that brought Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, HUD low income housing, the Clean Air Act, and the EPA.
Mr Obama’s ethnic origins not withstanding, this political situation we find ourselves is rooted in America’s racism, driven by its energy and manipulated by the wealthy ruling class to divert the common people from noticing how they are really being exploited.
Two things on this.
1) This word “Neo-liberalism” is driving me crazy. It is impossible to say what it really means and it confuses the hell out of the issue. It does not mean anything to do with what Americans are used to call “Liberalism” which grew out of the Progressive movement from the turn of the 20th century. I think it is going way back to the English liberalism of John Stuart Mill which means more like “liberal” as in “free” – free markets, libertarianism, etc.. Don’t use that word any more.
2) The last liberal president was Lyndon Johnson. He was a democrat because he was a southerner (Democrats were pro-confederate) and because FDR was a Democrat (only because cousin Theodore was a Republican and he wanted to be differentiated from him). Johnson made the extremely brave but fatal decision (for the Democratic party) to pass the Civil Rights act of 1964. He knew that in doing this he was losing the south for the democrats for the next generation. When Goldwater lost in 1964, carrying only the states of the old confederacy the Republican Southern Strategy was born.
All of Johnson’s “liberal” programs were then tainted as being for black people. The racist democrats north and south voted for Nixon and later became republicans. The Republican party went from being the party of Lincoln and civil rights to being the party of being anti-black, anti-welfare, anti-federal aid to education, anti-progressive supreme court, etc, etc.. The democrats were losing big-time and so they turned to southern conservative democrats and to disengage from all “liberal”, “welfare”, “civil rights”, “affirmative action”, “federal education”, etc, etc..
Carter did some of this, but Clinton made it his all consuming goal and finally accomplished it. He killed “welfare” as an issue that could be used to beat up democrats. The “Blue Dogs” were not strays, but pedigreed new democrat show dogs. Their job was to block and kill off any remnants of the LBJ “liberal” thinking in the Democrat party. They are succeeding as designed and planned.
What was the design of Rahm Emanuel’s congressional election strategy? What is the source of the pulsing energy of the Tea Party? Why does Mr. Obama’s history pass over Kennedy and LBJ and begin with Reagan as the one who “stabilized” and “transformed” the sixties and seventies, that chaotic period that brought Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, HUD low income housing, the Clean Air Act, and the EPA.
Mr Obama’s ethnic origins not withstanding, this political situation we find ourselves is rooted in America’s racism, driven by its energy and manipulated by the wealthy ruling class to divert the common people from noticing how they are really being exploited.