2024 Archives

The core argument of the “government is bad” crowd is that government is, itself, a monopoly. Since everybody knows that monopolies are bad things, so, too, government must be an intolerable affront that reduces the quality of life for its citizens. This meme has been incredibly destructive to America’s working people, who’ve become hostile to government while losing their wariness of corporate monopoly. There’s one type of monopoly that’s actually good, with a single caveat. That’s called a “natural monopoly,” and for it to work properly, it generally requires government. Consider your home. While you can buy a new stove or sofa or rug from many different companies, you’ll be hard-pressed to buy your water, electric, or septic from more than one single vendor. There’s only one power line, water line, and sewer line attached to your home. Thus, power, water, and septic are generally referred to as “natural monopolies.”

Into the void steps the "pink slime journalism" newspapers and websites, funded by multiple rightwing billionaires, peddling lies and hate to get rightwing Republicans elected to office… It's an election year, so get ready: here comes "pink slime journalism." Pink slime, of course, is the ground up gristle that's colored red and sold as meat or a meat additive, but the term has come to mean anything that purports to be one thing but in fact is something quite different. In this case, these are rightwing propaganda outlets that purport to be local newspapers. They're taking advantage of the tragic reality that since Reagan stopped enforcing antitrust laws in 1983 and Clinton did away with ownership limits for news outlets in 1996, over 2,100 local newspapers in America have gone out of business. Into that void have stepped the "pink slime journalism" newspapers and websites, funded by multiple rightwing billionaires, peddling lies and hate to get rightwing Republicans elected to office.

The white Republican base has been so lied to and abused over the past forty or so years that they’ve become easy marks for the predators in both big business and the GOP… While many trace the beginning of the modern rightwing fascist-friendly MAGA-type movement to the 1954 Brown v Board decision and the way it put the John Birch Society on steroids, another interesting origin story for today’s GOP base is grounded in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In the years immediately leading up to the 1970 creation of the EPA, pollution in America had gotten so bad it was impossible to ignore and was quickly becoming a political issue.