Throughout my entire life I have had to endure the ceaseless bleating of the right regarding every inch of progress made in America since 1932 as though Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton were all representatives of the antichrist sent to destroy all that is sacred in America.  It has been constant.  It has never ended. 

When I was a very little boy the liberals were firmly in charge of government nationally and in most states but beginning with the reactionary tideof the elections of 1966 the liberal retreat slowly began building and reached a fever pitch by 1968.  The assualt of the reactionary Republicans upon all things liberal was unending even once they had firm control of the national government.

The carping, bitching, cheap shots and general derision heaped upon liberalism has been the background noise of American politics now for over 40 years.  There are many angles and many nuances to this that one can talk about, dissect, reconstruct, and so on with respect to the Republican offensive against the modern world but in the most fundamental way, it all rested upon one big, simple lie.  In fact, it was and is the biggest lie of them all.  The lie was and remains that the New Deal and it's descendants the Fair Deal and the New Frontier and all progressive, proactive government policies somehow failed and that the underlying philosophy of those political efforts was quintessenially both flawed and unrealistic.  They never stopped denouncing every effort on the part of elected or appointed officials to represent the people's interests and instead claimed that all the interests of the people were best left to "the market" and/or to the businessmen who "know" how to run successfull enterprises and produce value.
 
Despite all the abundant evidence, the facts, the historical reality and the experience of our people in the real world, this biggest of all lies has gone virtually unchallenged for decades until now.  Now, right now, is the time to make the point once and for all just what a grotesque and obscene lie Americans have been sold by the right wing extremists of the Republican Party.  The financial "crisis" has laid bare for all to see what a complete and utter disaster the Coolidge/Hoover approach to government is in the modern world and it is no exaggeration to say that the "modern" Republican approach to governance is that of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.  Today, just as back in the early part of the 20th century, the Coolidge/Hoover approach yields precisely the same results it always did: dramatic boom times for the wealthy and disasterous busts for everyone else.

The remedy today, for the financial problems created in the wake of the dismantling of New Deal and New Deal inspired regultions is to reinstitute those regulations and others, for government to intervene and stabilize the economy and in that effort the government must actively represent the interests of the people instead of simply serving as an arbiter parceling out favors between a variety of powerful interests all wanting what they consider "their" fair share of largesse.

So, as our capitalist system once again lies prostrate in critical condition from collapsing as the result of an all too predictable binge of unrestrained greed, the fog of free market delusion is lifting from the eyes and consciousness of our people once again.  It is apparent for all to see what shameless, irresponsible and dangerous hypocrites the Republicans and their masters on Wall Street and the big business community really are.  It is quite clear that the only solution will have to come from the government and that it cannot be a series of remedies dictated by the lobbyists by and for the wealthiest of special interests.

Surveying the destructon left in the wake of the return of Cooolidge/Hoover governemtn is on display for all to see.  That is why now is the time when liberals, progressives and Democrats must make clear that the biggest lie of all is and has been that the New Deal was a failure.  The truth is that the New Deal was a success so spectacular it is difficult to quantify and that our mistake was not to have too much of the New Deal type programs and initiatives.  Our biggest mistake was the abondment and dismantling of the many programsa and policies that served us so well for so long and our failure to expand the very same approaches and philoosophies into other areas of American life such as healthcare, the workplace, education, and housing.

Liberalism/progressivism can rise from teh ashes of Wall Street's disaster like a phoenix and deliver at long last on some of the most fundamantal promises our nation has and the Democratic Party have left undone for so very long.  My advice to all who read this and care about moving the country forward before they die is, do not miss any opportunity to point out how this dramatic failure of conservative Republicanism has made it clear what a sham it has been all along and it is time to return to the successes that brought our nation into modernity and prosperity at the same time.  No more apologizing, no more excuses for being a liberal.  Liberalism, the New Deal and it's offspring never produced failure such as that we have witnessed in these past few months.  Quite the contrary and it's about time people were made aware of it so we can once again get the nation moving in the right direction.