As usual, Thomas Frank is one of the few writers making any sense of this year:
Today we stand at the end of a long historical stretch in which laissez-faire was glorified as gospel and the business community got almost its entire wish list granted by the state. To show its gratitude, the finance industry then stampeded us all over a cliff.
To be sure, some of the preachers of the old-time religion now admit the error of their ways. Especially remarkable is Alan Greenspan's confession of "shocked disbelief" on discovering how reality differed from holy writ.
But by and large the free-market medicine men seem determined to learn nothing from this awful year. Instead they repeat their incantations and retreat deeper into their dogma, generating endless schemes in which government is to blame, all sin originates with the Community Reinvestment Act, and the bailouts for which their own flock is desperately bleating can do nothing but harm.
And they wait for things to return to normal, without realizing that things already have.
It is always wise to remember that the damage done by Republicans during the Bush years was not the actions of a rogue group of misguided politicians who veered dramatically from the wishes of the GOP faithful. On the contrary, think back to a mere three years ago when ...
Asked to choose between George Washington and George W. Bush, Republicans in the survey supported Bush by a margin of more than 2 to 1, while Democrats and independents overwhelmingly favored Washington.
George Washington lost among Republicans 2 to 1. Really.
As 2008 draws to a close, I invite all of us to take some time to consider our long held beliefs about reality. Perhaps, as 2009 dawns tomorrow morning and with it a new administration moves closer to taking power, we should take a moment to ask if the policies of Bush and his conservative policy makers have created a better America for us all. Has deregulation worked? Is the War on Terror making us safer? Is expanded freedom and prosperity accomplished through a weaker and disinterested government?
If not, if the evidence from the last eight years is convincing enough to suggest that conservative ideas might not actually work, then I invite conservatives to consider changing your mind. You don't have to be pro-abortion to be pro-union. You don't have to endorse same-sex marriage to oppose stupid wars. And you don't have to be a Marxist to embrace universal health care. It is ok, in fact it is very wise, to change your mind when presented with evidence that convincingly challenges what you believe to be true. Is the evidence from eight years of conservative rule convincing enough? That is a personal decision each of must make, imo, and change our beliefs accordingly.
There are many on this blog and elsewhere who are going to spend most of 2009 trying to convince us that progress is a mistake. They will tell you that new regulations will stunt growth, or that "big government health care" will make everyone sicker. They will harshly criticize attempts to make unions stronger. And they will argue that pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into foreign wars is the only way to keep us safe.
What are the fruits of these ideas? When we look around the country today, can we really say that we are safer and more prosperous because we followed this advice? Or is it more likely that our country is in one of the worst spots of its history because of these ideas?
There is an old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I humbly raise a toast to the notion that in 2009 we won't get fooled again.
Cheers!
