Toles: While you were napping

[n2doc]

By Tom Toles
Oh sure, those of a progressive tilt are always nattering on about the rich this and the rich that. But guess what? This time they are right. “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” actually DIDN’T apply from World War II until about 1980, the period of time conservatives pretend to cite as the golden age of American wonderfulness.

Then came Ronald Reagan, who represented what conservatives REALLY craved in their sleepless hours. Reagan represented many things, but the pivotal one was his comment about Republicans. “We’re the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich.” Bingo! Got his wish! And now we have a VERY different America. This is no longer a change in degree. It is now a change in the kind of country this is.

Reagan, the cheerful traffic cop who installed the permanent green light to runaway greed as the new beacon of the shining mansion on the hill in exurbia. “Well,” as he would say with his sideways smile, we got what he wanted, and I hope you like it! Feeling powerless? Power follows wealth, and the wealth is now astonishingly concentrated in a walled and gated community. Wonder if anyone is left to say, “Tear down this wall.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/while-you-were-napping/2011/06/20/AGgI9zcH_blog.html

[Octafish]

1. Pruneface was a lot of things.

[Crankie Avalon]

2. With increasing historical perspective, we're going to increasingly see his presidency as...

...the one that really got the United States onto a downward spiral from a lender nation to a debtor one.