I remember back in the 1950s when we thought of the John Birch Society as a crazy, extremist organization which sought to do away with everything “public” because such things were “socialistic” and socialism was essentially the same as communism. They were said to have accused President Eisenhower of being a communist dupe and they were rabidly against the United Nations. In essence, the Birchers sought to do away with public schools, public electrical utilities, and any other programs of government which served ordinary people. They did not, however, seek the demise of government support for the rich.
The strange thing is that the Birchers and their fellow travelers on the extreme right have largely triumphed today, taking control of the Republican Party with Reagan's victory in 1980 and gaining a lot of influence in the Democratic Party during Jimmy Carter's last two years in office and with the Bill Clinton-Lieberman Democrats ever since. By means of the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing organizations, well-funded by extreme rightist millionaires, corporations, and billionaires, the Bircher philosophy of doing away with government enterprises and programs that benefit ordinary people has taken control of the dialogue of politics and economics. The result is that a revolution is being carried out, a revolution which is rapidly rolling us back into the age of the Robber Barons, the harsh industrial climate of the late 19th Century.
Instead of heading into a new 21st Century we are, in fact, hurtling back into the 19th in spite of the technological explosion all around us. The Privateers (people and corporations who seek to privatize all institutions except those which subsidize and protect the rich and powerful) are winning because they now control the mainstream media, huge sources of funding, and large sectors of intellectual life due to their capture of intellectuals who are willing to sell their message in exchange for lucrative funding, fellowships in right-wing think tanks, and support for their articles and books.
The wealthy classes generally controlled the politics of the USA during the 1920s, using the Republican Party as their vehicle but also frequently dominating the Democrats. The Great Depression changed all of that, and with the election of 1932, the people finally had representation in Washington. The result were reforms which improved the conditions of working people and which created Social Security and an entire range of new programs (such as those which spread electricity across the Plains) and the “Indian New Deal.”
The wealthy class, as a whole, hated the reforms of the '30s and as soon as possible after World War II they put together strategies to try to undermine the New Deal Democrats, including the McCarthy campaign to intimidate “lefties” and liberals. At the same time wealthy interests were changing the political ballgame's rules by taking greater control of the old media (newspapers, radio, and so forth) and the new media (television). To a large extent the rabid right came to be indistinguishable from the wealthy right, as they came together in efforts to gradually erode the gains of the '30s.
The assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, and of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., gave the GOP (Greedy Old Predators) the chance to come back to power under Nixon and then Ford (1968-76). Movement to the right occurred during their administrations, and also to some degree under Jimmy Carter. The inflationary spiral, created by unwise spending on the US-Vietnam War, played into right-wing hands, contributing to the Reagan victory. The Reagan administration, followed by George Bush I, (1981-92), saw many Nixon veterans joined by new hard-right ideologues who helped to move the nation's politics in the privateer's directions.
Nixon, by ignoring African-Americans and by cultivating “hard-hat” white workers and white southerners, made it possible for many white people of the South to gradually switch to the Republicans. Reagan's election saw the Republicans emerge as the “white man's party” which meant, in effect that the GOP was the party of rich people placed into office by people (men and women) who were not rich but who, for deep personal as well as ideological reasons, decided to support a rich white man's party.
The Privateers at one time were men who took to the sea in ships in order to steal other people's property. Nowadays the Privateers are men (and some women) who use the law, secrecy, and corporate wrongdoing to steal other people's property, often by taking over and exploiting privatized public agencies. One of the tools which they use to eliminate public projects is through the strategy of “defunding the public sector.” This can be accomplished by massive tax cuts for the wealthy (with a small handout to the middle-classes), a plan used by both Reagan and Bush II. Another tool is to create massive debt, at both state and federal levels, which then calls for a corresponding reduction in public spending. Again, this has been used by Reagan and Bush, with huge debts, as we are all aware. Bush II smiles and seems unconcerned about massive debts.
Defunding the public sector is a clever strategy which helps to privatize education and health services and which starves all public programs except, of course, the huge subsidies for corporations and industrial agribusiness who, in turn, are financing Bush II, the Republican Party, and GOP politicians and lobbyists.
We need to be aware of the right-wing strategies and do what we can to protect and restore the gains made after 1932.
