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ORIGINAL RESEARCHJerry Landay The Flight of the American DreamYou can't stuff the real world into a cramped ideology. It took the Radicalized Republicans 30 years to put their master plan into operation, underwritten by millions of dollars of patronage by far-right foundations and large injections of private wealth. It's only taken less than two years for the plan to catch fire and burn. Will the great ideas that created this land of the free and the home of the brave survive the departure of the good life that came to define The American Dream? Narrow ideology is no substitute for ideas coupled to action, for minds coupled to heart. George Bush had neither. He knew what he wanted to do on taxes -- cut them for the privileged; on government -- turn it into a piggy bank for his cronies; on Social Security and Medicare -- "reform" them into submission; on what to do with kids -- test them into cookie-cutter conformists. But he just sat there when Al Qaeda slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center. He just sat there when his buddies in the Congress sent the deficit plunging into the depths. He just sat there when Hurricane Katrina destroyed a major American city. He just sat there while his bureaucrats rubber-stamped the Dubai ports deal. His ideology couldn't serve up the ready answers to those crises. Nor could his neocon ideologues. They sit there while Iraq spins into hemorrhage of lives, squandered money, and lost opportunities. Columnist Paul Krugman exults prematurely that this is promising to be a Democrat/liberal Springtime, and concludes that "the high-water mark of a conservative tide...is now receding." But the flood wreckage the Democrats will have to deal with is catastrophic, incalculable. It includes a war without end, a foreign policy and our global repute in ruins, America's petroleum economy confronting chaos, religious division that continues to polarize the nation, and the public in a daze of confusion and anger. For Americans must confront another devastating loss: the End of the American Dream. If they didn't quite know what that oft-invoked myth stood for, they are learning what they are losing when it goes. We assumed The American Dream was our birthright, whatever it meant. We now realize it was founded on endless plenty and a bottomless cup. And we realize now that it is beginning to fade for more and more of us. The components of The Dream were realized in the form of steady jobs, inexpensive home mortgages, cheap credit, gasoline at bargain-basement prices to propel our late-model cars, secure pensions, and flag-waving confidence in imperial America, a global power that could do no wrong. The neocons tipped America into decline. And visions of the American lifestyle are going with it. The Dream -- powerful, pervasive, energizing, and defining -- has been holy writ for the middle class. But today, ask the 20,000 union workers at bankrupt Delphi who face permanent layoffs to define The American Dream , while thousands of others confront the prospect of having their own pay cut in half. Or, the thousands more union and salaried workers at General Motors and Ford, once the world's auto-and-truck leaders, now in retreat as their home market is dominated by gas-saving foreign cars. Or the retired guys who've just been told by the company they served for decades that they're being stripped of their pension security and health benefits. Or young homeowners lured by cash-free mortgages to buy homes an hour away by car from their work who are being forced to confront corrosive debt and the threat of foreclosure. Or the home-owning wannabes who find themselves priced out of the housing market altogether. Adding insult to injury, the redistribution of our dwindling wealth under the Bush reign widens the gulf between the wealth aristocracy and the rest of us. The American consumer economy is operating on two tiers. On top is the relative handful of the privileged, awash in cash and securities, filling airplane seats on expensive holidays, still madly building McMansions and second homes. A study by the New York Times tells us the Republicans' gratuitous tax cuts for investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing tax burdens on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000. Unfazed by any of this, Mr. Bush continues to press Congress to make cuts permanent for the privileged while the national deficit goes through the roof. The rest of us are in a squeeze as interest rates slowly rise, and inflation with it, battling higher prices driven upward by climbing energy costs, ever-costlier medical care and drugs. Home foreclosure rates across the country are beginning to grow. They jumped an average 13 percent per month nationally at the end of 2005, with highs of 61 percent in Texas, 70 percent in Arkansas, 45 percent in New Mexico, 210 percent in W. Virginia, and 36 percent in Indiana and Ohio. As for America's standing in the world at large, the fog of the endless Iraqi War has cost us friends it took two world wars to win. We discover yet again what we should have learned in Vietnam -- aggressive war is not glorious. American citizens who took pride in our previous triumphs see the reputation of this nation squandered in the world court of public opinion, reduced from a beacon of hope to a saber-rattling thug. We face a formless "war against terror" that Bush failed to deal with and can't be won. The result is the erosion of American power in the ruthless game of nations. Our ebbing might inspires reckless challenges from rogue leaders. Kim Jong-il of North Korea blithely ignores Washington's threats and proceeds to move his country into the nuclear club; Iran's theocrats follow with their nuclear plans ignoring Washington's bluster, and, together with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, make threats against our petroleum supplies. Globally, competition by Asian industrial powers for shrinking oil reserves makes Americans' free access to interstate highways and air lanes ever more expensive, threatening the assumed right of this high-octane NASCAR nation to cruise free and easy. Spicing the sea of trouble is the encroaching reality of climate change. All this converges into the making of a "perfect storm." We high-consumption Americans, who haven't been asked to sacrifice much of anything since World War II, aren't used to belt-tightening or living with exponential uncertainties. The ultimate question, though unaddressed by politicians, pundits, sociologists, anthropologists, Democratic politicians, and all the rest of us, is how we will behave when it dawns that we are being forsaken by The American Dream. Will we find a healthy outlet in a constructive search for strong, visionary leaders within the democratic process who will redefine The Dream to fit our reduced circumstances? When dreams and expectations fall apart, some often respond with rage, hopelessness, or fear. Is that how we will react? How many will flock furiously to follow dangerous demagogues who will preach certitude, offering false comfort in exchange for our freedom? How many will seek solace in radical religious frenzy and make a wrathful judgment on America, giving themselves over to witch hunts to root out "the infidels and the godless?" We have done that sort of thing before. In short, will the great ideas that created this land of the free and the home of the brave survive the departure of the good life that came to define The American Dream, and will we recover from what the Radicalized Republicans have inflicted on us? Jerry Landay, a retired journalist who lives in Bristol, RI, writes frequently for Mediatransparency on current issues. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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