Something about how we got here

I'd like to recommend an article entitled "How I View the American Crisis" by Robert Parry. Here's a little bit of what it says:

Generally speaking – and with a number of glaring exceptions – the post-World War II period was a time when the institutions of the Republic functioned along the lines of what we learned in our public school civics classes. The federal government drew from the lessons of the Great Depression and the New Deal to improve the country’s general welfare by creating conditions that helped expand the middle class.

...

Reagan denounced Medicare as socialist tyranny; he cracked down on the anti-war movement while governor of California; he aided and abetted right-wing death squads in Latin America; he opposed environmentalism and other government regulations; he worked to roll back civil rights, especially affirmative action aimed at ameliorating the legacy of discrimination against minorities and women. Upon taking office in 1981, with the Senate under Republican control, Reagan and his team began systematically deconstructing the institutional safeguards that had defined the New Deal and post-World War II-era.

...

Reagan emphasized, too, expanding the Right’s propaganda capabilities, coordinating with the growing network of right-wing media and attack groups that went after troublesome journalists and intimidated political critics.

...

Indeed, by the early-to-mid-1990s, there was little distinction between the mainstream news media and the right-wing press.

Starting to see where this is leading?

I do recommend that you click through and read the whole article. It's not all that long.

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