Their progress mostly remained unnoticed until the alarm bells began ringing, long after they had left the building. While America’s system of justice was slowly being perverted, the country Aqua-Netted its hair and traded stocks, snorted coke and danced to Boy George—laughing at
Reagan or praising him over the course of a decade, never really understanding that the red-sweatered president was merely a sunny figurehead atop a movement more cutthroat and angry than the glasnost-and Madonna-loving public could ever imagine. The full effect
of the work of these strange thieves would not be understood for decades to come, but it was in the shadows of the Reagan White House that the foundations were laid for the conservative judicial monolith that has, nearly half a century later, reoriented American society away from its expected magnetic north. As you read this, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court has finally overturned Roe v. Wade, brought religion back into the public square, ended landmark civil rights protections, and sanctioned discriminatory policies across the country. It is an outcome more spectacularly effective than even Weyrich and Meese and Bork and Coors could have imagined, back when they began their work in earnest, in 1981: a federal judiciary so deeply at odds with American public opinion—to say nothing of the last half century of social progress—that to envision it would have been, perhaps, delusional.
~~~
And through it all I would listen to spurts of news... but I was also always reading. I had come across a book that was not easy to read, but knew that I wanted to finish it, a little at a time... Another day goes by, glimpses of joy, awareness... Is it really true?
Finally finished and started a new book: The Steal by Alex Wagner, a news commentator I had come to know and discovered she'd written a book...
To the America that birthed Coors beer and away from the America that might actually be drinking it.
Specifically, Coors believed the University of Colorado had become a petri dish for socialism—filled with a generation of druggy liberals who needed to be freed from their slavish devotion to civil rights and women’s liberation. This would be the foundation of Coors’ campaign for a seat on the university’s board. Just two years earlier, the Supreme Court had struck down so-called loyalty oaths—a grave mistake, in Joe Coors’ opinion. Professors no longer had to swear off political activities, which was an abomination in the eyes of Coors and other upstanding Colorado conservatives who believed this would throw open the doors of academia to all sorts of left-wing socialist activity. Coors vowed to prevent the sixties—and their anti-American vibrations—from infecting the campus of the University of Colorado. It was a herculean task. On November 8, 1966, Coors won his seat on the board, the same year Reagan was elected governor of California. By the start of the 1970s, Coors hired a staffer dedicated to his (and his company’s) political activism—a man named Jack Wilson. A former broadcaster from Denver, Wilson was eventually given the task of running Coors’ right- wing television station, a proto–Fox News network called Television News, Inc., aka TVN. Wilson and Coors believed legendary newsmen like Walter Cronkite and Harry Reasoner were “leftists” who had steered the country toward liberalism, and TVN was Coors’s attempt to rebalance the scales. Wilson, now enlisted to monitor the coverage on the network, solicited story ideas from congressional conservatives and complained sharply to Coors about the network’s coverage of Hubert Humphrey, the ACLU, and Martin Luther King Jr., who Wilson called “an avowed Communist revolutionary.” All that complaining got Wilson a promotion to head of the network, where he reportedly told his news director, “I hate Dan Rather. I hate all those network people. They’re destroying the country. We have to unify the country. TVN is the moral cement.” The news director, maybe unsurprisingly, wasn’t long for the job (he and Wilson, among other things, got into a fistfight), and his former position was soon filled by an up-and-coming young political operative named Roger Ailes. TVN ultimately went under, but Roger
Ailes—and the vision of a right-wing news outlet to save the country from moral turpitude—would live to see another day. Wilson’s relationship with Joe Coors, however, endured beyond TVN’s failure, and he was subsequently made the beer baron’s “personal lobbyist.” In his capacity as Coors’s personal assistant for political affairs, Wilson had been dispatched to find worthwhile conservative investments for Coors’ largesse. As part of this research, Wilson sent out letters to prominent conservative lawmakers asking if they might help guide the beer magnate toward projects that could offer a meaningful boost to the right-wing movement.- -Wagner, Alex. The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts (pp. 20-21). Flatiron Books. Kindle Edition.
Yes, it, too, proved to be historically looking at today's world, but with humor, a bit of satire--or a lot... and I found myself enjoying the read... It had taken us back further than the present president. And started when most of us now living would at least know the president involved. Yes, republican. Have you noticed that there are many writing about times under this political party?
Frankly, I've been positive for some time that the word "conservative" has nothing to do with governing... It's been a manipulative word to be thrown out to those that have some fundamental learning of the word, whatever that may be, often associated with religion, and then pulled into a "must" type of situation where each individual is tossed and torn between what is right or wrong according to some vague experience that brings about an emotional reaction--positive or negative... The end goal is to incite fear, doubt... Oh, yea, it's the same for "progressive" but I tend to put the true meaning to that word and have found it a much better choice to make--if I have to make a choice...which I don't feel I should have to make...
One thing Wagner has done is researched the time period where she starts. You can tell it simply as you start reading... At least for me, there were names I had no knowledge of... You know what I mean, don't you? We have discovered that there are many rich men, or white men of influence that have pushed our country this way or that way, rather than just allow its people to govern as We The People...
Living in a diverse country, to me, is extremely refreshing--close to God as He chose to create each of us, don't you think? Often I wonder if I tend to over-compensate for those who differ in some way from what the white christian nation has traditionally taught... Then, my common sense stops me and shouts "NO!" Look where the country has gone by taking away freedom...to...be... What God Made!?! Yes, He has made each of us and there is nobody who is NOT worthy of His Love... That must be our guide, don't you think?!
Diversity brings out our creativity... Each of us has a way to find our own truth, our own walk with God... Is it wrong of me to combine Madonna and Boy George together with the scripture of Jesus? I don't think so, although I took the time to consider the placement as I created this entire post... When man chooses to take our creative thoughts which are used to explore what is really right or wrong and proclaim them as "dirty," "wrong," we ignore what that artist, writer, painter, is trying to express through what they see in life...
In fact, the book which I just finished is a perfect illustration of what some will call a "dirty" book and which should be banned... While I admit it is not an easy book to have read, yet, there is a story that needs to be told within that book--fictional or not. Why? because fiction is often used as a catharsis--as a self-help method of sharing something that a child might not be able to ever say to anybody. Yet, when we read such a book, it is a welcomed awareness that that one child was not alone... and, if enough attention is gained, perhaps that type of behavior might someday...be...stopped...
The fight is not over, remember that... Take a few days of rest when you need it, but always remember that this type of evil repeats over and over and over... And We The People are the only ones who can work to bring freedom to all of God's Children...
God Be with His Children
Gabby
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