I hate to say 'I told you so,' but... and this was NINE years ago!

Never Trust A Republican

Remember Reagan�s second term? Remember that �trickle-down� economic theory? Simplistically, we were told that if the government enacted programs that benefited the wealthy, the wealthy would in turn �trickle down� their largesse to the middle class; more businesses would expand, more jobs would be created, and everyone would benefit.I bought into that theory. Card-carrying Democrat that I am, I decided maybe it was time to listen to rich conservatives. �What the hell,� I said, �The important thing is jobs, and if giving tax incentives and other economic breaks to big business results in benefits for everybody, who am I to fault the plan? So what if the rich get richer? They can�t get any snobbier and exclusionary than they are, can they?�

Every time I try to compromise my liberal ethic, every time I listen to the economic doubletalk of somebody living on a fake farm in Somerset County, I get burned big time. Reagan got my vote, we got trickle-down, and the only problem was the money for the middle class somehow disappeared. The business �expansion� turned out to be Caribbean resorts and cruise lines, and the jobs became entry-level burger flippers for fast-food consortiums. Franchises that were once a great opportunity for the middle class to get a leg up into the Hamptons have now become the purview of stock brokers and bankers. McDonald�s is one of the few successful franchise operations that still cater to individuals (not partnerships and passive investors), but the average franchise buy-in starts at $175,000! Trickle down, indeed. Money just went from one pocket to another in the same pair of trousers.

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We are but shadows of our former selves...

Today we honor the first world space hero, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

Fifty years ago today Yuri Gagarin and the Soviet Union ignited the flame of American fortitude for what appears now to have been the last time... but what a time it was! Alan Shepard chased Gagarin, John Glenn caught him, and Neil Armstrong administered the coup de grace. America was at the peak of her power and influence.

But Vietnam tore us apart, and our government receded into a forty-year morasse of partisan patriotism and capitalistic greed that has eroded the magnificent diversity and resoluteness that once were our strengths.

Fifty years is all it took to bring us to this embarrassing, forlorn point in our history, wasting our time and blood in 2 1/2 endless, fruitless wars, babbling about economics while our infrastructure crumbles, watching a powerful new oligarchy slice away at a vanishing middle class.

Is there world enough and time left for us, or have we ceded the 21st century and beyond to another hemisphere? We'll see soon enough.