The precipice. (We went over it earlier than most USAians probably think.)
The Last Honest Speech by a U.S. President
I was sixteen when President Jimmy Carter gave his so-called Malaise speech in 1979. Focusing on America’s wasteful energy consumption, Carter vowed to cut America’s dependence on oil imports while pushing alternative energies such as solar. In crafting his speech, he listened to regular Americans and diagnosed a national peril far worse than America’s wanton consumption of energy.
And for his honesty, Carter got voted out of office in 1980. The sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan arrived, though the “sunny” part didn’t include the solar panels that Carter had added to the White House. (Under Reagan, these were quickly removed.) For Carter’s expertise in science (he was formerly a naval nuclear engineer under Admiral Hyman Rickover) came Reagan’s fossil-fuel-friendly policies and Nancy Reagan’s penchant for astrology. It was morning again in America in the sense that profit once again took priority over policy and people – and fantasy took precedence over reality.
[Carter's speech was prophetic.]
... _ Carter told Americans in 1979 that: “We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.”_
[And that is the path we chose. We have not ventured from it since.]
The second, much to be preferred, path was: “the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our Nation and ourselves.”
Does anyone have any doubt about which path America chose under Reagan and his successors?
The “certain route to failure.” A route where tens of millions of Americans lose their health care during a pandemic; a route where the government bails out the richest corporations first and the poorest Americans last, if at all; a route where division and fragmentation are the order of the day, embraced by a president who revels in chaos and his own self-interest. And a route where that same man is likely to be reelected as president in November, despite his colossal mismanagement of a health crisis that he can’t even bring himself to understand, let alone attempt to control.
... Is it any surprise that real wages for workers in America have basically been flat since the time of Carter? Reagan instituted Robin Hood in reverse, facilitating an economy where the rich got far richer, mainly by trampling on the backs of the middle class and poor.
So, we collectively bought a cancerous fantasy in 1980, one which has now metastasized with a malignant and sociopathic exploiter, Donald Trump, at the helm.
[The whole article is a must-read.]
