It’s great to listen to the dumbest of dumb curse out liberalism and the Progressive Era. What did the progressives give us? Well, clean water, clean air, the Pure Food and Drug Act, clean healthy meats via Ida Tarbel and Upton Sinclair. But what did our conservative friends give us: monopolies, inter locking directives, rigging, price fixing, rancid food, pollution of our lakes and rivers (acid rain and PCBs), and strip mining. What did the plutocratic Gilded Age give us regarding the work place: horrible conditions (The Triangle Shirtwaist fire and hundreds and hundreds of other tragedies,) child labor, abuse of women, toxic, long work weeks (60-72 hours), no breaks, no sick leave, no vacations and sexual harassment. But , what of the horrible, commie liberals and what they worked for: safe work conditions, the right to collectively bargain, wages and hours, the minimum wage, the ban on child labor, defined holidays, pregnancy leave, sick leave, bereavement leave, job protection for drafted soldiers and regulations on work place conditions: clean bathrooms, first aid equipment and ventilation. Oh how terrible these union, social rats are! They helped the workers, what a sin!

How about voting? Let us see what our “enlightened” conservative friends brought us: grandfather clauses, poll taxes, white property owner’s qualifications, intimidation at the polls, phony robo-calls, disinformation, photo IDs, among many other restrictions. But, what about the commie liberals, woman’s suffrage, the Hatch Act, 18 year old voting, overseas voting for soldiers, the end of Jim Crow laws on voting, the right of recall (Wisconsin progressives), the right to have referendums, and the secret ballot. Are these democratic policies or commie, fascist ones? Only dopes on the right can argue against those gains and reforms.

But let’s talk about the business world and anti-trust! The “liberal, so-called commies” supported the Sherman and Clayton Anti-Trust Acts, which the conservatives opposed. The liberals and the Democrats created the Federal Reserve System which regulated monetary policy, brought order to the markets and stabilized interest rates. The conservatives love caveat emptor, (let the buyer beware), support deregulation of the banks and have no concern about collusion between the banks and business (the Savings & Loan disaster of the 1980s). But, what of the stock markets, the series of severe recessions from the Depression of 1907, to the Great Depression of 1929? If the right wing could read, they should open up “The Crisis of the Old Order,” and really learned what caused the stock market boom and bust of 1929.They opposed all sorts of regulation and it took four years of Depression, after the Crash, to bring on the New Deal. What did the New Deal bring: the SEC, Glass-Steagall and reforms of the market place, and the banks, along with the Security Laws of 1933, 1934, and 1940? It’s the FDIC that protects your bank account wherein from 1929 thru 1933, 5000 banks failed with the loss of nine million private bank savings accounts. Blame that on the Liberals, the progressives and the Democrats!

Who opposed these regulations? The conservatives, who else? But, did this limit growth and prosperity? In deed, the first four years of the New Deal saw huge increases in growth and by the beginning of WWII, America had recovered enough to be the Arsenal of Democracy. The size of the economic cataclysm is almost hard to perceive. Even though the Department of Commerce listed unemployment at 25% many estimates believe it ranged as high as 36% and the most likely number is probably a bit above 30%. The amount of new capital financing had declined 95% since 1929. The amount of new building contracts had declined by at least 75% in those same years. The Dow Jones Average was off 90% since its high in late 1929, and there were 5000 bank closings since the crash, which eliminated nine million, pre FDIC uninsured accounts. US Steel, which had almost a quarter of a million full-time employees in 1929, now employed no one but executives. Schools in major cities and some states virtually shut down for lack of money. In the first half of 1933, 250,000 homes were taken over by the banks, and over 1000 families per day were cast homeless into the streets. This is what Franklin Roosevelt inherited on March 4, 1933.

By 1933, business failures had risen almost 50% from the end of 1928 (109 to 154 per hundred thousand). From 1933 to 1935, only two years they dropped to almost 40% from the 1928 levels (62 to 109 per thousand). Unemployment rose from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933. From 1933 through 1937 unemployment dropped 44% to 14%. This figure did not include over 2 million workers employed by the WPA. As to the Gross National Product, by 1933 it had dropped from $103.6 billion in 1929 to $56.4 billion in 1933. This represented a loss of 44% of the total goods and services of the country in 3 years. In FDR’s first administration it rose approximately 64% to $92 billion. By 1940, with defense spending still only 22 % of the federal budget (from 1928 through1932, defense spending represented an average of 38% of the US Budget), and 2% of the GNP, the GNP had risen to $101.4 billion or 4% higher than 1928!  Because of the New Deal, hourly wages which had dropped from 58 cents per hour in 1928 to 49 cents for hour in 1933 (a drop of approximately 25%) rose 74 cents per hour in 1940. This represented a strong recovery of 28% from 1928. These figures are undeniable.

Did we have a recession after the war? No! The regulations that were put in place enabled America to have its greatest growth until the oil embargoes of the 1970’s. Despite three severe recessions in the Eisenhower Years, America grew steadily under Democratic presidents and a basically Democratic Congress. They gave us Medicare for seniors, Medicaid for the aged and the poor, Civil Rights, voting rights and women’s rights in the market place and in their bedrooms. What did the GOP and the conservative puppet masters give us? More Jim Crow, more Bull Connors, more insider trading, more phony stock deals, more restrictions on Choice, opposition to birth control, more censorship and a litany of other regressive efforts for the few versus the many. In other words, who are they for?

The right wing stands for nothing. It celebrates phony patriots. It wraps itself in the flag, the last refuge for scoundrels; it’s backward, inward and self-serving. Their sites are forums for racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, bigotry and misogyny. It is closed –minded, it exclusionary and devoid of new ideas. It is the opposite of open, free-thinking, innovative and creative. It has opposed the expansion of understanding, the acceptance of new culture and ideas and it notoriously backward.

But the conservatism has an even more backward side to it. This side is known as the “lunatic fringe,” which rejects science, Darwin and toleration. It believes in myth, conspiracy and its hates everything it isn’t. It blames government, it hates other races and religion and it justifies its strange existence through arcane Biblical metaphor. Therefore, it celebrates faith over reason, rumor over fact and their view of the universe rejects science. If the liberal says white, they say black. They defend so-called individualism over working for the community, the greater good, or the commonwealth. They accuse every one who is not in lock step with their mantra as being communist stooges. In other words they are the “lunatic fringe.” Name it, they oppose it. Talk about safety nets, they claim people are lazy; working together they claim socialism, supporting public art, museums, libraries, parks, they say you are a commie! But take away their benefits, their federal aid and the roads and infrastructure government must do, they are the first to yell, “foul!”