A Virus Called “Neocons”
AngryAndrew Presents an Answer to the Question “Why is America So Screwed Up Right Now?” NeoLib or NeoCon, it’s more than a pile of garbage—think parasitic weeds with deep roots.
I ’m a straight, meat-eating, white male gun-owner, yet I think
the religious right is a giant pile of human excrement oozing over America like a festering puss-filled herpes sore.
But the Flip Side is Just As Bad
The far left is equally guilty of spreading self-entitled elitism and engendering the “victim class”, asking all of the nation to eat their gigantic feces-filled garbage sandwich while getting bent out of shape on those that refuse to say “thanks may I have another?”
And that concludes our ridicule of the body politic for this evening. Too easy; just daily fodder for the writers of late night television. Neocon or Neolib, both sides of the uni-party coin that always lands on the side of greatest divisiveness.
And while yes, the United States of America faces a myriad of problems, let’s be honest with ourselves — these problems didn’t start with the current administration, and no, not with Trump either. The fact Biden luck-boxed into his position as puppet-in-chief, he’s just a symptom of a much deeper illness. A virus that has infected the United States.
I use the term illness or virus deliberately, because the neocon movement is “malware” not unlike a computer virus. Though perhaps more specifically a “trojan horse”, which is a computer application that claims to do something good & useful, but instead covertly damages your system, eventually leaving your computer useless pile of silicon. The damage done is often not noticed for a very long time, often too late to correct.
Americans Elected a Trojan Horse
But it’s not Biden, it’s not Trump, it’s a Little Further Back
In the late 1970s, Americans were afraid. The USSR was a visible (if toothless) threat, American citizens abroad were being held hostage, and the administration’s visible failures in military and foreign policy created a confidence gap that the GOP maneuvered to fill. What they needed was a salesman. Someone slick and polished who also believed the party line.
The man the GOP pushed to the top is also the first step to answering the question “why is America so very fucked up right now,” and it begins with Ronald Reagan, sworn in January 20, 1981.
Ronald Reagan, the former California Governor and an accomplished actor, was ideal for the neocon agenda. He would become the puppet-leader of The neocon-infused Republican Party.
He would sell Americans on a glamorous and prosperous future, but like many Ponzi schemes it was more of a sham than substance. Worse, the destructive nature of Reagan’s policies did not become apparent until long after he left office. A mess future generations of Americans would be burdened with, often scratching their heads as to “how did this happen?”
Like a used-car salesman, Reagan presented a shiny, Turtle-Wax encrusted package called “trickle down economics.” It looked attractive on the outside, but inside this trojan horse policy was deficit spending, crushing debt, dismantled social safeguards, authoritarian justice, and a new self-entitled, pious morality.
Give to the Rich
Even the poor in America have been sold on the idea that they might be wealthy someday, so therefore the rich must have more! (Such fantasies are self-sabotage are possibly why they are poor, and easy to manipulate). The trickle Ronald Reagan promised would start by ending income caps, so now CEOs can rake in mega-millions per year, as opposed to having to suffer with the paltry $2 to $3 million-a-year income that they had under previous administrations. The existing income limitations came in the form of larger and higher tax brackets (Including a 91% bracket at an inflation adjusted $2.5 million in the 1950s), so eliminating these also meant the ultra-rich paid less in taxes. More for them, less for everyone else.
And with more for the rich, are they going to trickle it down? Sure, the same way a dog trickles on your leg. No, Virginia, there is no trickle down effect. With unbounded incomes, the strategy many rich employed is essentially currency hoarding, taking money out of the economy and putting it into passive investments and instruments that do little or nothing to build the economy. Giving CEOs more also meant that workers made less while inflation continued, further reducing the middle class.
With currency being taken out of circulation and hoarded, business started to suffer due to anemic cash flow. So the Fed starts “printing money”. Great, only this dilutes the value of the existing currency and we get increased inflation.
And Reagan launched the Republican/neocon strategy of excessive deficit spending — a fiscal irresponsibility from the same people that accuse the Democrats of “tax and spend.” The Republicans instead “borrow and spend,” a process that has and is bankrupting the nation with record deficits and accelerating debt. This kind of management is not unlike trailer-trash living off their credit cards with no plan (or intention) to pay them off.
And Justice For Some
With fewer tax dollars, something had to go, so he gutted social services, especially for the mentally ill, dumping thousands of people with mental disorders out onto the streets. This resulted is one of the most tragically visible repercussions—Mass shootings. Look on this chart how mass shootings really start to take off in the early Reagan years.
Of course there are some other reasons besides mental health for the increase of shootings, in particular Reagan’s massive expansion of the War on Drugs, with the appalling Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986.
The War on Drugs has only created more violence and crime, not to mention disenfranchisement, police corruption, and an increasingly unjust criminal court system and prison industrial complex. Gosh, why help anyone with a drug problem when you can just lock them up and throw away the key?
The rises in crime & violence along with the new pious & entitled moral right, created push for new and tougher laws with increasing sentences and ultimately, profoundly unjust mandatory minimums. The escalation included punishing minors as young as 12 with adult sentences including life without parole.
As a nifty bonus, this made the United States of America the world’s leading jailer. There are more people incarcerated in the US than any other nation on earth, both per capita and in total numbers.
“Land of the Free” my ass.
AMERICA IS THE WORLD’S BIGGEST PRISON STATE
With a Thriving Prison-Industrial Complex Eager for Longer Sentences
Well, fuck you very much Mr. Reagan, use butter next time, okay? And that goes for the rest of the tea baggers, neocon sympathizers, christian fundamentalists, and entitled cash hoarders that infect the GOP.
Sorry, the Republican party is no longer the “Party of Abe,” if anything the GOP is the “Party of Abuse.” Now filled with sanctimonious religious zealots, cash hoarding moguls, self entitled moralists, and people too retarded to realize they’re supporting a party that acts against their best interests.
But hey, before you think I’m all single-sided on the neocon garbage, I wouldn’t want to you think I’m clearing some path for a democratic resurgence. Far from it. Biden (and Clinton) are themselves largely responsible for the current prison state; Biden’s 1994 crime bill (he authored while serving as corporate-shill-senator) caused this explosive prison population and the introduction of for profit prisons, and the general destruction of American freedoms.
And let’s not forget how G.W.Bush blessed the school kids of the 2000s with ignorance-as-a-virtue, instituting the “No Child Left With A Brain” educational mandate. The most I can say about Obama is he was the “least bad” of the last ten presidents.
Ten Little Indians
Ten? Yes, this goes all the way back to LBJ, who single handedly began the destruction of the middle class, while creating a set of social programs that resulted in the destruction of the nuclear family in minority communities. LBJ is the actual source and direct cause of the specter of fatherless minority households, a socially devastating problem we still face today.
If the Soviets were to plant a mole president, he would be hard pressed to do more destruction than LBJ. An administration so very bad that the emergence of the neocon movement was all but guaranteed. And today? The nation is scratching its ass wondering how the fuck did we end up HERE (Hugely Entitled Repugnant Extremists™).
But hey, we can fix this. All we have to do is reverse all of Reagan’s policies right now. And Clinton’s, and for that matter, a careful rollback of all the asinine things from LBJ forward.
While that’s easier said than done, it’s a worthy goal. If we can do that we might get back on track in about, oh, 45 years? I’ll never see it. I do hope that even after I am dust in a grave that some of those with an entitlement to power actually wake the fuck up enough to pull this nation out of the sewer we are floating in.
BUT if we don’t stop this NeoLib-NeoCon shit-show right NOW?
Well, then, basically we’re fucked.
The End
Edited and expanded January 2024. This article was originally entitled “Trump, Neocons, and the Virus” however recent events demonstrate that I myself was taken in by the big-media slander of Trump. As the thrust of this article was never about Trump per se, and largely about Reagan, it seemed best to edit and expand it.
