For twenty years conservative/republican policy had been working to dismantle any leverage and protection workers had from capital, while shifting the burden of paying for social programs away from the wealthy and corporations.
Without those protections workers could be cheated out of their fair share of the benefits of their labor while employers are no longer obliged to provide any kind of security or fairness in the workplace.
Without the government revenue to support the social programs they would collapse under the burden of the demand placed on them by the people they were designed to serve.
These things were obviously intentional, and it required a monumental long term cooperative and multifaceted effort and huge amounts of money to impose these conditions on a national level here in the land of the free, even with a largely inattentive population.
Once that groundwork had been laid the Cheney/Bush regime seized power and gave the green light to wholesale looting. They gave away the store. They propped the front door open, and pressed “No Sale” on the cash register, left the cash drawer open and headed for the golf course. They gave the signal that the deal was done, the fix was in, and they were having a going out of business sale to clear out the rest of our government.
BIG Clearance Sale! Everything MUST Go!!!
Since then corporations and professional looters have responded accordingly, basically liquidating and looting anything and everything with impunity. Yee Ha, baby, it’s the new frontier!
Oh, on the way out, the bushies left us something else…
They left a new reality to guard over their achievements. It’s spectacular and preposterous and completely detached from the reality we actually live in, and it’s sustained by the participation of our entire establishment, and by the fact that so many people don’t believe such a thing is possible.