Down the Up Staircase

America is really getting interesting. I was a student of cultures once and remember wondering, in two different disciplines, how countries with huge momentum could screw things up independently of external pressure and fail quickly. Things got worse: all the arts, government, technology. 

Read the satires of Juvenal or about Athens in 415 and the desecration of the Herms. It wasn't just me. We talked about it openly in class, first in studying economic history and then classical cultures. Most of the European empires sank from their own stupidity, usually by overreaching.

Think how hard it was for the Union to defeat the Confederacy in the Civil War. It looks inevitable now but beating someone into submission on their own turf is hard. Even if an enemy waltzes in they still have to maintain the place, against the will of the inhabitants and their allies.

This is all a country like ours has to do, keep from being conquered. Now try to imagine our defeat. So what are we so afraid of and why are we stirring up trouble everywhere? Bad leadership elected by us. Reelected after they screwed up. Good work is unrecognized and unrewarded.

America has always on balance been an open way up for a whole lot of people. On balance. If you were free to try you could move up. Not any more. We're in a special lockdown and even people who are working their asses off are moving down. This is only disputed in creationist circles.

Disputed because they have caused it, through bad policy, and they know it. The blame will come to rest on them. Why not now, while there may be some chance to reverse the damage and restore goodness? Look at the trends since the 1970's. This is not difficult to figure out, people.

Bad policy has bad consequences so you change it. Even conservatives believe we're going backwards but won't admit that the age of our ascent was all made possible by progressive policies, with progressive taxation and investment in infrastructure, when it's simply true.

By observation. So they argue stridently, as they must, to overwhelm common sense. The ascent occurred over a longish period but, still, the connection with sound, progressive policy is clear. Ted Cruz thinks Republicans win by owning the crazy, by insisting on extreme policy. 

That's his shit. I think progressives win by owning the reality that we built the country, we're the good guys, and that conservative policies are observable failures. We argue the record. I'll argue it. And, by the way, Republicans desecrated the Herms.