General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Disturbing. Something Senator Sanders said on the radio today. [View all]deutsey
(20,166 posts)is a good rumination about this shift.
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Under-Siege-American-1976-1988/dp/1879957116
Woe unto thee, America, is the message of this powerful, disturbing work by the author of Indispensible Enemies.
In Part I Jimmy Carter is described as the candidate of the democratic awakening, marked for systematic destruction by Reaction and losing one battle after another as the press grows "more stupidly cruel as Oligarchy grows more brazenly vile and Carter more stupidly weak."
In Park II Karp turns his baleful eye on Ronald Reagan, whom he characterizes as "an ignorant, truthless demagogue." The story of the 1980s, in Karp's view, has been "the exaltation of a tyrant and the degradation of a republic." The military establishment has been fed at the expense of "the poor, the ill, the handicapped, the schools, local services, student loans, enforcement of laws."
According to Karp, the Strategic Defense Initiative is a "hoax and a fraud," a "trillion-dollar mirage." As to the president's denial that he was involved in the Iran-contra scandal, Karp says, "You lie, Ronald Reagan; you lie through your teeth." He warns that the Right does not intend to give up power in the post-Reagan era: "It dreams and schemes and relentlessly plots to rule America from the grave."
Despite the overwrought tone, this is an important, provocative work by a passionate political commentator.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.