Wither Thou Goest -OR- Strike The Root

It's a money trick folks. It's been a money trick since nineteen-sixty-nine. Whether you've bought into it matters not. The trick goes on. What happened in `69 you ask? Think about it. The fog of war. The Great Society. Riots in the streets. Uppity Negroes. Law and Order. DFHs and Flower Children -The Baby Boomers-, on the verge of "taking over". The Silent Majority, which was neither, exerted its influence, called in its chits; made sure that change would not imperil its unobstructed, unfettered control. There were enough willing heirs and wannabes to perpetuate the privilege of privilege. Sons and daughters of America's ruling class, would negotiate and manage the illusion of transition and transformation. With a knowing nod and wink, all would be taken care of, law and order would be firmly enforced. New laws would be crafted to quell the rabble. That's what the whispering minority insists is necessary. Preserve, protect and defend regardless of how offending it is to the founding principles.

Nobody would notice. Loyal Young Republicans, hired or appointed by Old Republicans, filled the ranks. Not a torch passing; more of an apprenticeship. They made their bones building the castle walls, battering rams and siege towers of modern political life. LBJ's Great Society Programs were handed to them as unshaped blobs that were intended to be formed into meaningful social programs. Instead they were rolled out as facades, just enough to still the beating liberal heart, but weaponized for future use. The Rube Goldbergian structure visibly accepting the raw materials (cash) and extruding minimal finished product at the spigot end. What a marvelous machine! The right people, (or mostly the preferred "People of the Right") spent eight giddy years making sure that the structure would stand up to future attempts to alter the purpose to which it has been designed. "All Show; NO Go!" Who's minding the store? Who's manning the customer service desks? Who's cooking doing the books?

The purpose of the exercise was to provide future conservatives enough tangible proof that social programs are a waste. Flinging around aggregate sums spent under the guise of this marvelous machine has been the life-blood of the conservative argument against the very government they've indicted as ineffective; to help them gain more control over its ability to enrich the rich, and make no mistake, the machine has made countless people wealthy beyond their worth to society.

Pure evil genius. Plain and simple. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to implementation, but the history says it was LBJ's Great Society. The reality says it was Nixon's.

While that was where things went awry, they didn't become fully untethered until RWR
found that voodoo magic overdrive thingy that made sure there was no way back short of implosion and collapse.

I'm fairly confident that some future historians will reach the consensus that it all went to pieces from chasing a myth. It's the same myth that has crumbled empires since forever. Each time, the rebuilders pledge not to fall victim to the same venal human foibles, and each time the pledge is ignored.

It could have been different this time, but it wasn't. Maybe next time...