Prospects of a Revolution from the Right

Prospects of a Revolution from the Right
February 28, 2009

Ethelbert Miller, the Washington poet, is right in expressing fears of a revolution-from-the-right. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups are on the rise.  Meanwhile “respectable” conservatives are already blaming Obama for aggravating the economic crisis.

For a discussion of  typical conservative doublethink as to what caused the housing and banking crisis.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1011

Unfortunately I frequently have students informing me, that the banking crisis was caused by the Community Reinvestment act!    That’s as big a joke as blaming minimum wage laws for unemployment, or blaming the Great Depression on the New Deal.  But don’t laugh!

The above dogmas are currently being taught and accepted in most economics departments and MBA programs.  The sad thing is that good kids regardless of gender, race, or class, are susceptible to such notions and absorb them indiscriminately.  It is ironic to contemplate working class students rising up in anger and protesting that they can no longer afford to attend business schools that indoctrinate them with propaganda that is tailored to undermine their own class interests.

How can we win against this sort of thing?

We must continue to inform them that Roosevelt increased taxes and created government jobs, and that his only fault was not being aggressive enough until the war provided him an opportunity.  One stage  of his recovery plan was the Lend Lease Act, which kept the factories humming by building tanks and giving them to Stalin.   Another part was the banking reforms, which kept us out of a depression for almost seventy years.

For thirty years under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Democrats and Republicans conspired to dismantle the New Deal.  Under Alan Greenspan, appointed Fed Chairman by Reagan, and renewed by Clinton, and both Bushes, the government followed a course of constant inflation, in the prices of health, education, and housing.  The Congressional Budget office, Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Council of Economic advisers, etc., conspired to fudge the statistics and lie to us about inflation, telling us it didn’t exist.

In reality, real wages dropped constantly, tempting middle-class households to take out adjustable rate mortgages, foolishly hoping to benefit from constant inflation of housing prices to compensate for inadequate purchasing power — in other words speculating against the dollar

Meanwhile, their children were graduating from college owing tens of thousands of dollars, and unable to find jobs.  It became increasingly difficult to afford the costs of health care for our grandparents, our parents, our children, or ourselves.

The housing bubble has popped, and I predict this is nothing compared to what may be coming if the credit card bubble busts.

When people start pushing wheelbarrows full of worthless money to the supermarket, they will blame Obama, and that should be enough to bring out the Nazi armbands.  As it was in Germany, 1923.