The irony of this is that Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan's favorite Rethug to idolize and write hagiographic BS about, is responsible (in part) for the messed up s

The irony of this is that Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan's favorite Rethug to idolize and write hagiographic BS about, is responsible (in part) for the messed up state of society (the 1% etc, 2008 - everything over the past 30 years that has lead America into its current quagmire). Reagan laid the groundwork for blatant hypocrisy among the right to be acceptable. Yes, an analysis of the actual actions of Reagan, etc would show he was really more "liberal" than the BS artists who hold him up to be the epitome of 'conservatism' would like to believe, but what I'm talking about is the shift in social attitudes - "Greed is good" etc - the _propaganda_ that the right / authoritarians successfully use as a smoke screen to wreak havoc on the rest of us, the global economy, etc. That mantra has only gathered steam over the years and now America is reaping what it has sown. Reagan should have been impeached for the Iran-Contra debacle, and by giving him a pass, a precedent was established that finally lead to the Iraq war (and $3 trillion dollars wasted on an illegal war - and no one who lead the West down that road will ever be punished) So once again, yet another hypocritical Republican "conservative" incapable of taking responsibility for their actions. Yes, there are other factors in play, but the veneration of Reagan makes me sick because it is a symbol of how screwed up a society America is, contrary to its self-delusions. And now we have Obama, Marxist liberal, who is busily turning the US government into the harbinger of the New World Order (which the authoritarians on both sides are going to love). Don't get me started on the hypocrisy level of Obama... Yes, lots of hand waving generalizations. But I'm trying to get at some abstract aspect of how societies can change. I suppose it was all inevitable, given what we know of how empires collapse. I really don't see America fundamentally recovering from any of this.