To the Right of Nixon

“I know progressives who are nostalgic for Richard Nixon.” Ralph Nader

I particularly enjoy this time of the year on California’s Platinum Coast. The light arrives early in the morning and remains until well into the evening. I usually wake to the twittering of birds; the days are fine, neither chilly or too warm. Santa Barbara is still full of itself, still entranced by its own image, a distant cry from the town I grew up in many years ago, but what the hell. So what if the foodies and the wine aficionados and yoga parlors and private wealth managers have taken over, and State Street is just a carnival for out-of-town hipsters. Let the good times keep rolling.

It’s funny what Ralph Nader said about his progressive pals who are nostalgic for Richard Nixon. Those of us who are old enough to remember Dick Nixon in all his many political guises, but in particular the Nixon of 1972 to 1974, may be hard pressed to view Nixon as a friend of anything remotely resembling a progressive position, but the point Nader is making is that the American political scene has shifted so far to the right that many policies advanced by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama actually lie to the right of Nixon. Think about that. And don’t for a moment believe that Madam Clinton will reverse the trend. Madam Clinton is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Fuck all New Democrats is what I say, they have bent us over and rammed it home. Barack Obama is viewed as a peace-loving leader at the same time his administration is busy provoking Russia, encircling China, selling weaponry to Vietnam, and conducting drone warfare all over the planet. Oh, and let’s not forget that Obama, the man of peace, is proposing to spend around a trillion of our tax dollars to “modernize” America’s nuclear arsenal. This modernization isn’t mentioned by Bernie Sanders or Madam Clinton.

We will be at war with someone, somewhere, forever. We will maintain a military presence in Afghanistan in the same way we have maintained one in Japan, Germany, Okinawa, and South Korea. We will occupy most of the planet militarily until the sheer expense of this empire crushes us. We are the drooling ogre with a learning disability who cannot learn the lessons of the past. We tell ourselves that our armaments are used only for noble ends, to protect our freedom or to free others from the grip of despots.

We lie to ourselves, always have, because to do otherwise is to expose the corrupt underbelly of this country. The lights are dim all over the city on the hill.

We are reassured repeatedly by our corporate propagandists that we are blessed to live in a democracy where our vote and our voice matters. This is bullshit. In the United States those that govern do not fear the governed. Why should they? Our votes are nullified by money, drowned out by money; our governors serve the money masters, gerrymander the electoral map to insure their perpetuation in office. We, the governed, pay 535 people to represent our interests, to advance policies that will provide us the most life, liberty and happiness, and they repay us with betrayal, with sell-outs, with austerity and endless war.

And look at our choice for the highest office in the land, the leader of our empire, two representatives of the ultra-rich who haven’t the faintest idea what it means to be an average, wage-earning person. Bernie Sanders understands, at least when it comes to economics, but the system will not let him past the velvet ropes.

Damn, what a downer. Is such pessimism warranted?