Generations X,Y, and Z may have just gotten their first good look at what happens when a the GOP grabs the whitehouse and in the interest of accurate history, I live to state the obvious. I was a second generation TV baby, 1961, and one of my first political memories is sitting alone watching LBJ make his speech about not running for reelection. LBJ did not laugh.

Jimmy Carter was the president at the time of the forementioned turning point, a highly qualified and experienced military commander. Jimmy was more interested in winning the peace than building an empire. Iran had been abused by the CIA for many years preceding the Carter administration.

Ronald Reagan was elected president in a landslide 3 years later while people danced in discos, popped Quaalude's, and joked about the evil enemy over there that they knew little or nothing about.

Anyone who advocated not attacking Iran was reminded by the hateful masses that our nation's embassies are sovereign US territory that if invaded represents an act of war. None of this applies to a nation who sends spies to Iran who are there with the intention of breaking the law. The mainstream media fueled the hatred by focusing on the nationalist opinions rather than the facts and the history leading up to the event. Realistic information was available at the time. People simply refused to admit that the US might have done something wrong.

Revenge, more popular than justice, inspired voters in mass to start the war in Iran. Few Reagan voters would admit that they considered him a serious candidate for president or representative of their own opinions. They joked, said he was an actor, and they wanted to live in a safer world. I can assure you beyond any doubt that the world was safer at that time than it has ever been before. There vote cost millions of foreigners their lives.

Carter inherited the diplomatic problem from Richard Nixon. This man's rhetoric was quite different than the transparant doubletalk that you hear since the conservative revolution. Nixon used some of longest sentences in history as well as "I am not a crook" to speak to citizens on TV. Nixon was one of the first TV presidents. Dick had a vocabulary at least tenfold that of the prince Bush.

Nixon did not laugh and sneer about wars and other serious issues. He may have lied, he was probably dishonest, he deserved to be impeached, he often fooled the citizens, but he never insulted my intelligence. Nixon had enough fear and respect of US citizens to keep his skeletons hidden in a closet.

The general public insisted that Carter was elected based on Nixon's disgraceful performance. There is also some truth to that in my opinion.

Reagan was clearly elected based on the vengeful hatred that the public had for Iran, frustration that Carter would not exact their revenge, and an economy suffering from the reality that oil is a precious and expensive commodity that should not be exploited in the pursuit of extreme luxury.

The extremely simple concept that using large diesel trucks to deliver fresh bread daily to the supermarket contributed to inflation, was a problem too difficult for the US industrial machine or citizens to even consider fixing. You can still find a large consensus of people who will claim that the oil companies and or others conspired to create an "oil shortage" so they could raise the price. Stupidity. In contrast, a rolling blackout, is deliberately controlled by electronic machinery and the public generally considers this to be a result of an overloaded public utility. As if it were something that cannot be avoided.

Nixon did explain the energy problem in detail on TV. He had no great solution in mind, but showed enough respect for the nation to speak about the problem without making a joke. In contrast, Bush has laughed almost every time I have heard him speak. Nixon reserved the jokes for private conversations. That traditional respect which has been lost is in large part due to the hardline security measures and isolation of the republican revolutionaries who tend to get abused if they appear in public.

Carter's intellectual depth generally went untapped because he so often had to debate hate and revenge concerning Iran rather than address the progressive changes that the US needed to keep up with the future. There are no simple solutions for complex problems.

The attack on Iran Reagan promised never happened and the perceived error by Carter to offer money in exchange for hostages probably spared many lives.

Here comes stupidity as a fashion rather than an unavoidable and sometimes cute reason not to give some one responsibility for the entire nation, 1981.

Enter stage right, the so called conservative revolution, Saddam Hussein, the Iran/Iraq war, and the elder Bush. The dumbification of America accelerated at a pace that was unbelievable by those who could read and write.

With no overt war to fight, Reagan insisted on claiming war powers to fight domestic ideological differences. Every speech I ever heard Reagan make included jokes, laughing and doubletalk. The majority of American citizens still regard this man's simple minded rhetoric as wisdom.

The speeches he made attacking affirmative action and welfare contained fewer jokes and laughing than his others but skillfully used prejudice as a means of dividing people and attracting the most blessed to join his campaign of elitism and thoughtless exploitation of the poor and the proletariat.

Every aspect of commercial fashion and art reflected Reagan and the conservatives. The dumber the better. Popular music suffered severely.

The prediction that communist proletariat nations would suffer from technical stagnation and economic failure started to manifest itself in the US. The scientific process was no longer necessary for scientific ideas to be proved as facts, across the board. An overt partnership between government and favored industries plan how applied science will be developed and distributed. The magic motivator that is supposed to keep this all honest, according to the conservatives, is of course money. That bit of wisdom is debatable to say the least. That is why we have the terminology computer job, computer related job, and the careless use of the term technology to represent electronics. The term information technology probably came from a private company rather than a scientist. Communications and computer science are terms that can be used to describe the same things without as much opportunity for deceit.

Currently, that problem continues to get worse, people are becoming less literate, and the GOP now redefines words after they use them in context. I am not speaking of the left behind high school dropout but the Ivy league conservatives that cannot construct an intelligent sentence and have no good reason to do so.

It is still hip to be dumb. Huey Lewis said hip to be square but he meant dumb and greedy.

The brief prosperity of the mid 90's ushered in commercial art of much higher quality and diversity than the drab 80's. Realism about politics and the economy was still nonexistant. After 12 years of hardship most of the working class were too busy playing catch up to worry about progress and the future too much.

No matter how hopeless politics seemed since the conservative revolution, the more optimistic liked trying to convince themselves and others that if they make a lot of money they can do something to "give back to the community" or some other good deed that will make the world a better place. The chances of doing enough good to make up for the damage you do getting hold of the money in the first place are rather slim. But this is the primary excuse for being moderate.

Conservatives are not alone however in the stupidification of America. Neoliberal special interests plagued the Clinton administration at a time when he needed progressive allies and was open minded about public opinion. They also used simple minded Reagan like rhetoric to petition for regulations while avoiding intelligent debate. Sympathy for crime victims and trash like that is what I am speaking of.

The conservatives, who pride themselves on ignoring public opinion, are also open to suggestions. This is as irrelevant as voting for some one who will claim that national security prevents them from revealing their own activities or the budgets controlled by their appointees.

This article is an opinion of course. But it does contain some historical facts.

Here is another aspect of the conservative revolution's history that I consider very close to reality. (Reality is the coexistence of beings containing intelligence in a unified time and space. We do not all live in separate realities.) The conservatives not only stacked the judiciary using class warfare and coercion, they consistently use war directives from the whitehouse to predetermine the outcome of criminal cases in courts at every level of government.

Any one who claims to have an education and certification to practice law and participates in such activities for any reason, (just doing your job is no excuse), is a criminal deserving the death penalty.

What Reagan preached is that it should be easy for a prosecuter to win his case. What he did was that he forced the judicial to become the prosecutors, the prosecutor does virtually nothing unless the case goes to trial, and the trend he started has snowballed into a criminally insane criminal justice system.

At the local misdemeanor level, the judges now routinely hand out punishments as plea bargains to the assumed guilty without ever considering the details of the case. This is not what they are hired for. The judge is supposed to consider every case on its own merit and without prejudice favoring the prosecuter, police officers, or any other government official. Anything less is a criminal dereliction. At the end of such an ideological war, those who can be considered guilty of directly ordering death and torture are those like the GOP appointed judiciary. Many GOP judges run unopposed here in Texas because who wants to work so hard achieving a law degree in a nation that has no constitution. Who wants to be an attorney for Stalin? A lot of crooks. Very few good people.

Reagan also insisted on deregulating the activities of the police department at the expense of civil rights. The results of this have cost many lives. It is American Blasphemy and is intolerable as a tradition in the United States. The mass media cooperated gladly in creating massive mythical hero stories about the integrity and bravery of the police. Not only do most people believe it, they are entertained by it. The ones that actually put the uniform on tend to confess that they get psychotic delusions and a feeling of power when they go to work. In stark contrast, pre Reagan, Serpico was a popular story.

The last time I was arrested the constable stopped on the way to the combination library/jail and yelled at some young boys riding a skateboard in the parking lot. The coward had stopped me for passing him too closely as he carelessly stood on the shoulder of a busy highway at night.

These monsters get created by conservatives who purge the police of the honest whenever possible and exalt the criminal types and romantically stupid moral warrior who wants to change the world and sexually dominate young boys.

The citizens will change the world if the neurotic and stupid police will stay out of the way. You do not have to save us from ourselves and you don't need to leave the station unless some one calls you.

All of these Reagan inspired problems continue to fester along with the energy problem. Iran is still considered an evil threat by most Americans, but I bet most of them can't point to it on a topography map. Despite the marvels of the information age, they are no better informed than they used to be. The misinformation available outweighs anything realistic.

I think OPEC should not consider 30 dollars a barrel a target price until polls indicate a landslide victory by Kerry. But don't cause yourself any hardships, sell what you need to sell. Be conservative. Start a revolution. Sound dumb? The phrase conservative revolution is way dumber than politically correct. Like hot water heater.

It takes millions of years to accumulate intelligence and only a brief period of time to lose it all.

It is now fashionable to redefine the English language every two years or so which is not cultural evolution but ignorant stupidity and a cop out when it comes to making a sincere effort to communicate.

On a final note, the ironic last nail in the coffin of democracy will probably be a combination of electronic devices designed by state funded research to help fend off foreign competition which led to an intellectual property war that prevents gullible citizens from actually knowing how their voting machine works. The apathetic masses may attempt to comfort you with wisdom like "the government regulates these sorts of things, so it must work right". Reality is more like this. If the majority of the public admitted the truth about the myriad of problems concerning computerized voting machines, they would have to seriously rethink accounting, stock trading, banking, conveniences stores, you name it, if it uses a secret computer program you can easily use it for crime. The problem really isn't the electronic device but the frivolous claims of ownership of intellectual property. I accurately predicted that election problems would decide the last presidential election. The possibility of that happening again has increased substantially along with the more widespread problem of intellectual property rights encroaching on the ballot.

by Albert Kada
from THE AMERICAN BLASPHEMER http://www.io.com/~davecom/