BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
HOW CAN ANY BLACK OR POOR WHITE PERSON WITH ANY SENSE BE A
CONSERVATIVE?
.
.
Absolute proof that any Black or poor person who identifies with
conservatism is uninformed is the fact that they obviously don’t understand the
English language. The word “Liberal” means that the person has a liberated point of view and is dedicated to “Progress” in our national politics – thus, they are called
“Progressives”. On the other hand, the very word “Conservative” means the
person is dedicated to “Conserving” past traditions, including bigotry – both
racial, and economic.
.
So I purposely use the words “conservative” and “liberal” rather than political party affiliation to avoid confusion, because Republicans love to routinely point out that it was Democrats who were the Confederates, rebelled against the nation, and founded the KKK. But they fail to point out that from the Civil War until just prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Democratic Party was made up of Dixiecrats, and Dixiecrats were rabid conservatives.
.
But beginning with the Franklin Roosevelt administration and his “New Deal” for the American people through the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, the Democratic and Republican parties completely changed their political polarities. During that time conservatives flooded the Republican Party, and liberals became Democrats. So, let there be no doubt about it, conservatives have ALWAYS been this nation’s bigots, regardless of what political party they were in.
So I purposely use the words “conservative” and “liberal” rather than political party affiliation to avoid confusion, because Republicans love to routinely point out that it was Democrats who were the Confederates, rebelled against the nation, and founded the KKK. But they fail to point out that from the Civil War until just prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Democratic Party was made up of Dixiecrats, and Dixiecrats were rabid conservatives.
.
But beginning with the Franklin Roosevelt administration and his “New Deal” for the American people through the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, the Democratic and Republican parties completely changed their political polarities. During that time conservatives flooded the Republican Party, and liberals became Democrats. So, let there be no doubt about it, conservatives have ALWAYS been this nation’s bigots, regardless of what political party they were in.
.
Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s conservative founding
fathers believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be
given a permanent share in government. He said:
.
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
.
Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President after being selected by congress, instead of the people. Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!? But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
.
Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the
aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
.
Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President after being selected by congress, instead of the people. Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!? But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
.
REMEMBER HOW THE GOP SAID THE $1.5 TRILLION
TAXCUT FOR THE RICH WOULD BE GOOD FOR AMERICA?
TAXCUT FOR THE RICH WOULD BE GOOD FOR AMERICA?
NOW THEY'RE MAKING YOU PAY FOR IT.
.
TRUMP 2020 BUDGET CUTS
.
$1.5 TRILLION from Medicaid
$845 BILLION from Medicare
$25 BILLION from Social Security
$207 BILLION from student loan programs
.
AMERICA’S BEEN SWINDLED AGAIN.
.
TRUMP 2020 BUDGET CUTS
.
$1.5 TRILLION from Medicaid
$845 BILLION from Medicare
$25 BILLION from Social Security
$207 BILLION from student loan programs
.
AMERICA’S BEEN SWINDLED AGAIN.
.
Our grandparent's generation - the generation that experienced the
Great Depression, fought WWII, and who we refer to as "The Greatest
Generation" - wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House, because they had already lived through Republican governance during the Great Depression.
.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
.
.
Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to follow.
.
In 1929 during Republican, Herbert Hoover’s administration, the stock market crashed - much like under the Bush Administration - starting the Great Depression, but back then there was no Barack Obama to come to the rescue or mitigate the damage early on. So in spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Herbert Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. Much like Republicans of today, Hoover and his Republican Party had absolutely no compassion for either the plight of the American people, or America’s veterans who had put their lives on the line for this country.
.
During Hoover's administration, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.
.
The conditions were horrific. During the Great Depression there
was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak
to work they had no income, so they had to depend on their children for
support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support
themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they
also had to support their parents. So three generations of a family could
be living in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the
husband, and the wife lived with the family.
.
In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights, or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.
.
.
In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights, or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.
.
They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no
overtime, and no paid vacation. In addition, since there was no child labor
laws, if your boss didn’t think you were being productive enough, he could insist
that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you
wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot,
in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown
out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
.
As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
.
Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out into the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today.
.
During their era, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and finally died in office on April 12, 1945. The Republicans had to promote the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution limiting the president to two terms in office just to have even a remote chance of
.
As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
.
Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out into the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today.
.
During their era, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and finally died in office on April 12, 1945. The Republicans had to promote the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution limiting the president to two terms in office just to have even a remote chance of
getting
into office. But finally in 1953 they managed to elect the hero of WWII,
Republican, Ike Eisenhower to office, but even he was a Republican in name only. In 1957 he sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate a segregated
school after Gov. Orval Faubus tried to prevent Black students from entering,
and as his final act in office he warned America about the Military-Industrial
Complex, the very people that Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent
today. If Ike Eisenhower was still President he would summarily execute a lying, traitorous draft dodger like Donald Trump. Trump wouldn't have even been able to get a pass to visit the White House.
.
The Republican party has long been a party that is irresponsible, self-serving, reckless, and dangerous to American democracy. The leaders even look like mindless, pig foot-eatin' bigots. So, the American people need to wake up, because with every day that passes, Donald Trump is continuing to fill our government with more ignorantly corrupt and self-serving people just like himself. Even as we speak, Mitch McConnell has invoked the "nuclear option" to flood our courts with ideological fanatics that will ensure the corruption of justice for another generation.
.
.
So, the bottom line is, history clearly demonstrates that any Black or poor White person who identifies with conservatism has to be a self-hating and unpatriotic wannabe by definition. They've given priority to their need to either identify with the wealthy, or cater to their bigoted attitudes toward others over what's in the best interest of the country as a whole. That, in turn, suggests that they're also selfish, mindless, and uninformed. The entire conservative philosophy is in direct opposition to the founding fathers' proposition that good government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people", while conservatives contend that a government based on those principles is a form of "socialism", and advocate the alternative philosophy that good government is "of the greedy, by the rich, and for the bigoted,"
.
That's the primary reason that conservatives have mounted a brutal assault on public education and promote anti-intellectualism as something to be desired. Due to the fact that conservatism is based solely on the further enrichment of the rich, they cannot survive among people who are educated in the conservative atrocities of the past, know the difference between working together for the betterment of all as oppose to a socialist autocracy, and who have the intellect not to work against their own interests - and that's not merely a political opinion, it's a political fact.
.
So the Trump administration may inadvertently be serving a useful purpose; it's revealing the dark underbelly of both conservatism and the true malevolence of the religious right, and that is indeed a valuable public service.
.
That's the primary reason that conservatives have mounted a brutal assault on public education and promote anti-intellectualism as something to be desired. Due to the fact that conservatism is based solely on the further enrichment of the rich, they cannot survive among people who are educated in the conservative atrocities of the past, know the difference between working together for the betterment of all as oppose to a socialist autocracy, and who have the intellect not to work against their own interests - and that's not merely a political opinion, it's a political fact.
.
So the Trump administration may inadvertently be serving a useful purpose; it's revealing the dark underbelly of both conservatism and the true malevolence of the religious right, and that is indeed a valuable public service.
.
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.