Time to Admit the Truth?

It is astonishing that a large core group of Republicans in the House of Representatives could hold the country to ransom. But today they did. Their cause? The hallowed altar of ‘free markets’. They whined that Nancy Pelosi had ‘upset’ them with a partisan, but entirely accurate, assessment of the Bush regime’s record. That record is appalling. That record is a reflection of basic post Reagan Republican beliefs. Pelosi was telling the truth. The New York Times editorial says it the way it is:Editorial – What?¢?‚¬?„¢s Worse Than a Flawed Bailout? – Editorial – NYTimes.com

This is the point at which we need to take a deep breath and acknowledge the truth: so-called ‘free-market’ ideology has failed. This is an indictment of all the political and academic efforts of the right wingers for almost three decades.

Reagan came to power claiming that ‘the government is the problem’. Yet here we are post Katrina and post financial melt down with a clear and painful history: deregulation and unfettered market economies are very unpleasant places for the large majority. They are places where life is, to use Thomas Hobbes famous phrase from the 17th century “nasty, brutish, and short”. We need government. And we need competent government.

If there are two defining characteristics of the recent past, in particular the years of the Bush regime, they are that incompetence [think Katrina and Iraq post invasion] and deregulation [think Wall Street melt down] are intolerable for a fully effective and functioning democracy.

So the central core value of the right wingers has been proven wrong. Horribly wrong. As an exercise in social experimentation it has caused misery beyond even its critics imagination.

Yet here here are the Republicans throwing a hissy fit that Pelosi should notice and actually say so out loud.

Sorry.

That’s pathetic. There is nothing wrong with calling a duck a duck. The Republican ideology of the last thirty years is responsible for what is now playing out in our economy. We should learn from their mistake and move on.

If they cannot learn so be it.

They will have plenty of time as the minority party they deserve to be. They should get used to it. Meanwhile the rest of us have to find a new way of conducting our affairs.

Let the post Reagan era begin. The sooner the better!