For all of the intensity of the reform movements over the last forty years, whether the issue be civil rights, open government, worker's rights, environmental protection, women's rights and sexual privacy, or campaign finance, I submit there has been an equal and opposite reaction from the elite right wing that has spent the better part of the late 1970s and the 1980's reorganizing and reconstituting their ranks.
We need not look far for proof. Congressman Henry Waxman and the House Committee on Government Reform issued its Minority Report on Bush Administration secrecy in September of last year.
The Bush Administration has systematically sought to limit disclosure of government records while expanding its authority to operate in secret. Taken together, the Administration's actions represent an unparalleled assault on the principle of open government.
Waxman's report outlines and gives detailed account of the Bush Administration's expansion of secrecy and obfuscation of the public's right to know.
Indeed, Vice President Cheney's actions in opposing the GAO subpoena of his Energy Task Force records underscore this Administration's, and this elite Right Wing's, desire to turn back the reforms of the last forty years. A return to the 1950's, or the 1920's, is what they desire.
David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, wrote the bestselling book, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception.
Corn states:
Living in a fact-free Bushland must be fun for our president--especially since he occasionally seems to be detached from, let's call it, reality-based reality.
We all think that Bush is just an idiot and a liar who cares not for facts.
But what if there is more at work here? What if Bush is lying for a reason? What if Bush ignores facts for a reason?
Putting two ideas you have long thought about together doesn't always work. Sometimes the puzzle pieces don't fit. But when they do, it is called an Epiphany. And that is when the light bulb appears at the top of your head.
On the one hand we have a right wing elite that has been trying to undo every Democratic or common man reform instituted in this land over the last forty or more years. Indeed, they are even going after Social Security, created more than 70 years ago. On the other hand we have a President who lies constantly and without remorse or regret. A President who ignores reality with arrogance, as if reality were just a petty annoyance.
Put the two together.
Consider for a moment the following: The elite Right Wing's, of which the Bush family is an intergral part of if not the leader of, desire to return to the ways of the past. One of those traditions was to trust the government implicitly. No one ever dared question the honesty of government officials in times past. There were no investigations of government corruption. But nowadays Congressmen are respected as much as used car salesmen. What if all of Bush's lies, whether they be about Iraq WMD's, Medicare prescription drugs, Social Security, NCLB or what have you, were indeed a well planned method to get the American people to trust the government again?
Think about it. If the administration says one thing and sticks by it, never admitting they are wrong, never admitting a mistake, they we have a conflict between facts and the government. We have all seen Administration spinsters use whatever fact they can find to support earlier assertions. Old Mustard gas cannisters that was pre-1991 buried in desert = WMD!!!!! The reason we went to war was justified.
And with the Administration's recalcitrance, add actual attempts of proproganda. Add a media that is actually owned by the right wing elite that is allies with Bush, and with of course will refuse to investigate Bush seriously and will instead be a bullhorn for whatever the President wishes to address.
When facts and even reality are politicized, the people don't know who to believe. And when the common man, Joe Q. American Public, is faced with the consistency of the Bush Administration versus the truth, which by its very nature takes time to reveal itself and thus gives the appearance of inconsistency, the people will choose consistency every time.
The people will choose the government. The people will trust the government again. No matter what the truth says.
Nixon's downfall instilled the fear of God in the elite right wing. And they have been working for the last thirty years to make sure open government goes the way of the ERA. A nice idea, but never implemented.
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