During lunch today, however, a couple of things came to my attention. In the New Republic On Line, there is an interesting article by Rick Perlstein. It tells the story of a concerted effort on the part of American industry to use company propaganda to begin to instill a spirit of conservatism in their employees which would, ultimately, culminate in the Reagan/W.Bush agenda of undoing the New Deal.
I am looking forward to reading the book Mr. Perlstein reviews, and am very much looking forward to Perlstein's own forthcoming "Nixonland". He seems to have his eyes fixed on an obscure but important part of history- that period when America began to turn away from the New Deal of FDR, and began to RETURN to a policy of Social Darwinism and laissez faire economics.
This shift has long fascinated me, since it seems so obviously not in the interest of any of us who are not incredibly wealthy, but which, nevertheless, seems to hold a powerful attraction for the American character despite their "class interest".
The article can be found at: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070101&s=perlstein010407 However, you may have to subscribe to read it.
And Green Mountain Daily has an interesting post by "Odum" today: Bush Administration "Brushes Off" Leahy, Draws the First Constitutional Showdown of 2007
Pat Leahy is moving toward a very important constitutional battle with the Bush administration. Here are two quotes from the UPI article:
Last November, Leahy requested two documents concerning CIA interrogation methods, the existence of which officials recently acknowledged for the first time in a lawsuit.
"The department's decision to brush off my request for information about the administration's troubling interrogation policies is not the constructive step toward bipartisanship that I had hoped for," said Leahy in a statement.
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