Carnival of Shame is a reflective commentary on the Fifty-Year Conservative “Assault on America,” from the 1971 “Powell” political grand design to save “Capitalism from Democracy” and the 1981 Republican “Trickle-Down” Revolution to the January 6, 2021 Republican violent insurrection to overturn the Constitution and the electoral will of the people. Yesterday’s America of promise, opportunity, and prosperity for the many is today an America of “concentrated wealth,” wealthy tax cuts, and a Republican Subsistence “Trickle-Down” Society for the “surplus” left behind. The time is now the moment is here for a People of Liberty to come together for an America of secure democratic institutions, a strong middle class, and a Republic of “Liberty and Justice for All.
About the Book
Carnival of Shame is a compendium of my previously published works on the Conservative Fifty-Year Republican “Assault on America,” from the 1971 “Powell” strategic grand design to “save capitalism from democracy” and the 1981 Republican “Trickle-Down” Revolution to the January 6, 2021 violent insurrection to overturn the Constitution and the electoral will of the people.
The narrative is a reflective commentary coupled with facts from the historical record on the political-economic reality of America’s dysfunctional “dark
money” politics in today’s Conservative Orwellian world of lies, deception, and deceit. My focus centers on today’s reality that we are a People of Liberty politically and economically abandoned as just unworthy “surplus” collateral damage struggling to survive in a Republican wasteland of concentrated wealth, ideological extremism, hypocrisy and betrayal.
To every working American struggling to make ends meet, it is an APPEAL for political redress in the battle to overcome the Conservative “survival of the fittest” politics in today’s Republican world of “Trickle-Down” human bondage. It is a PLEA for a Citizen Electoral Mandate to END the Republican political-economic predatory culture of injustice, poverty, and death.
For me and my generation, we were once a middle class people prosperous and secure. That was before the 1971 Republican “grand design” to “save capitalism from democracy” and the making of the Conservative financialized “Trickle-Down” debt-based economy. Then, every American shared in some way the good times of America’s Industrial Golden Age. We were a hard working industrious people, stable and strong, with a progressive living wage, an affordable mortgage, medical care, and education, and the promise of a dignified retirement in old age.
But, it was also a grand moment of the American experience, as we, a People of Liberty, pledged unequivocally our sacred honor to defend the “Constitution of the United States” against all enemies “foreign and domestic,” and “national interest” meant, in real tangible terms, safeguarding the “general welfare” of a free democratic people.
After five decades of the Republican “Pooring of America,” that once middle class affluence is now a “Trickle-Down” debt-based casino society of concentrated wealth. America in every sector of American life is a Republican political-economic world of monopoly supremacy, subsistence-wages, financial growth gimmicks, speculation schemes, and the destructive hedge fund pillaging of America’s infrastructure. As a result, we are a people consigned to endure today’s Republican “surplus left behind” America of “every man for himself” struggling to secure the basic necessities of life.
With the onset of the 1971 Republican “Powell” grand design to “save capitalism from democracy,” the rise and impact of the Business Roundtable, Heritage Foundation, and Federalist Society, coupled with a Conservative ideological Supreme Court’s legalization of unlimited, unaccountable, Ultra-Rich political “dark money,” America’s electoral campaign integrity and democratic institutions have gradually become undermined and compromised.
The ruthless, fanatical, Republican decades assault on America’s People of Liberty is today the social-economic reality of the Conservative “big money” vested interest Republican “Trickle-Down” political agenda. Whether or not we are willing to admit the truth to ourselves, we are a struggling democratic people mercilessly abandoned to the greed, corruption, and injustice of the Conservative “deregulated” predatory “Trickle-Down” subsistence economy. We are a people in a life struggle not only for the welfare of our families and our children’s future, but what’s to come for of a hijacked disenfranchised Republican autocratic America.
In these desperate and perilous times we bear witness to the plight of millions of Americans sacrificed and abandoned as just “surplus” to the ravages of the “Trickle-Down” Conservatism of “you’re on your own” desperation. “What a weary time,” Charles Bukowski laments, “to have the desire and the need to live but not the ability.”
The time is now that we keep in mind as a People of Liberty the warning of Daniel Webster to America: “Our destruction should it come … will be from the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government … falling prey to the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing”.
We are in this American moment a politically polarized divided nation given to Republican lies, false narratives, legislative chaos, extreme gun violence, and “white supremacy” politics. Considering the political extremism of the Republican controlled “House” of seditionists, the unlimited campaign “dark money” of the financial power elite, Republican voter district gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, we can expect the coming election will be exposed to every Conservative political resource of ruthless political extremism. Without question the Conservative political establishment will make every effort to “burn or rule” in a grand finale “Assault on Democracy” to seize absolute political power in 2024.
Now as we approach the Conservative “apocalyptic” reality of 2024, we must appreciate that 2024 is not just another election. This is America’s electoral moment where the future of Democracy, Freedom, and Justice in America is up for grabs. Every ballot cast in 2024, is a ballot for one issue, and one issue only: “POWER!” – the “power” to preserve or destroy “democracy in America for all generations to come.
For a reminder of what a Republican power grab in 2024 would bring to America, imagine for a moment the tyranny and horror of Republican authoritarian rule over a “lawless” racist America of anger, hate, and chaos, unfettered predatory capitalism, and the terror of unbridled forever present gun violence on the streets of America
Presently, the 2024 Republican Machiavellian “Maga” frontrunner, a twice impeached, four-time criminally indicted insurrectionist, is being unequivocally upfront in laying out an Orwellian political supremacy agenda for restructuring American democracy into a corrupt political authoritarian order. Appreciate we must a “Maga” power grab for what it portends: (1) a “Maga” seizure of absolute power of authoritarian rule on day one; (2) the dismantling of the democratic process, democratic institutions, and the administrative state (3) removal by “executive order” of “birth right” citizenship; (4) rollback of America’s “civil rights” laws, (5) replacement of “civil servants” with political loyalists, (6) detention camps for the politically designated “vermin” and “rabble” of “Maga” retribution, and (7) employment of active military units against civil demonstrations.
This is the Republican plan for a Conservative “Maga” America on the assumption of power: a 1930s racist authoritarian model of “fascism” for a 2025 America. BELIEVE HIM! This could be the people’s “forever reality” in a Republican “Maga” authoritarian political world.
The outcome of America’s political struggle in 2024 is nothing less than Freedom itself: Freedom for a people of Democracy, Truth, and Justice liberated from the Republican Corruption and Injustice of the political-economic ideological Greed of the Conservative Profit over People “survival of the fittest” world of “individual extremism.”
LEST WE FORGET
They
Came promising
“Trickle-Down” Prosperity
For everyone
Then
Repealed the rule of law,
Took our jobs and pensions,
Undermined our civil liberties
And
Freedom was no more,
Greed enveloped the land,
Corruption reigned supreme
As
Fascism triumphed in
the Suffering Silence
Of Human Bondage.
BETRAYED
Suspended in a sea of Corruption,
Poverty, and Despair, I ask myself
“Who Am I” in this political
Wasteland of Lies and Deceit
And in my trepidation, I know
I am nothing, just “Trickle-Down”
fodder struggling in a “Lives for
Profit” Predatory Jungle
With each new day I strive to
survive the deprivation of
being “surplus” in a wilderness of
Greed, Corruption, and Injustice
Betrayed, Abandoned, Forgotten
to subsist in Human Bondage,
I long for the return of
Democracy, Freedom, and Truth.
DEMOCRACY’S LAST CALL
A quiet day. Not much going on except for the news. And bad news it is everyday as revelations of hard evidence come to light of the role of the Republican inner circle of power and Republican members of the legislature complicit in the January 6 Republican “insurrection” to overturn the will of the people.
Bill looks over at Martha with a sense of compassion wondering what could become of them and America with the outcome of the November election. The Election of 2024 could very well be for a People of Liberty democracy’s Last Call.
Pondering the latest “insurrection” news, he says, “The Republican Assault on America, Martha, could be the death knell moment for “democracy” in America. After fifty years of Republican protracted political warfare to destroy democracy in America, the Republican culminating battle for America’s democracy envisioned in the “Powell” blueprint to “Save Capitalism from Democracy” is here. And it will be for decades to come the “all or nothing” struggle for absolute power supremacy over the people of America.
Martha, without looking up from her sewing, says, “well, if America is to survive as a democracy, we must as a People of Liberty level with ourselves the reality of the Republican political fifty-year “Trickle-Down” politics of lies and deceit for what it is. In a word, Bill, it’s plain and simple – FASCISM: wealth and power that deceives through lies, deception, and deceit to “keep the common man in eternal subjugation” to a debt-based subsistence economy of state sponsored “dark money” politics,” voter suppression laws, low wages, appalling working conditions, and excessive rents, taxes, cost of living.
“The truth is, Bill, regardless how we try to sugarcoat the reality of servitude, we are a politically disenfranchised people held hostage in a Republican “you’re on your own” “Trickle-Down” kleptocracy of Shame: day labor, service jobs, insurmountable debt, and unaffordable necessities of life – from healthcare to housing and education to an old age poverty retirement.
“Think about it, America’s infrastructure has collapsed, rampant unchecked gun violence dominates our lives, opportunity for our children’s future is all non-existent, “legalized” financial corruption has control of the economy, and the nation’s wealth and economic growth is concentrated in the top 1%, and the oligarchs and corporate state all but tax exempt. We see every day the Republican racial extremism of “Jim Crow” injustice, and the denial of the Constitutional right to vote.
“Face it we must, the people’s America of the “Land of the Free” is today a wholly owned subsidiary of the financial power elite represented by a Republican extremist anti-democratic establishment of legislative obstruction in pursuit of permanent absolute power and political domination over the rights of the people. SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, MEDICAID, AND “EVERY INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY” WILL BE NO MORE “IF” THE REPUBLICAN POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT SECURES A CONGRESSIONAL MAJORITY IN 2024.
“If we are really serious about restoring the “Land of the Free” to a democracy “of the people” in 2024, we must as a People of Liberty in this political moment call out the CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL REALITY and REPUBLICAN CULTURE OF DEATH for what it is: CLIMATE CHANGE “denial” as an expedient of the Politics of Profit over Human Existence is ECOLOGICAL GENOCIDE; MEDIA “MONOPOLY” ownership is Laissez-fare PRIVATIZED PROPAGANDA; pandemic ANTI-VACCINE LIES and disinformation as an expression of radical ideological “extremism” is POLITICAL MANSLAUGHTER; to undermine Constitutional democracy with lies, disinformation, and deceit is POLITICAL SEDITION; RACIAL DEMAGOGUERY and “white supremacist” hate speech in a multi-cultural democracy is what Hannah Arendt referred to as the “BANALITY OFEVIL”; Lives for Profit debt-based SUBSISTENCE ECONOMICS is state sponsored SERFDOM; DARK MONEY ELECTORAL DOMINANCE is politically endorsed FASCISM; VOTER SUPPRESSION LAWS and appointed election officials authorized to overturn the “will” of the people is CRIMINAL ELECTORAL SUBVERSION; and the OBSTRUCTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNANCE, be it executive or legislative, in whatever manner, is POLITICAL TYRANNY. And, let’s be clear, Bill, VIOLENT POLITICAL INSURRECTION to overthrow the government in any country, whether successful or not, is for all involved regardless of status, position, or influence, what it has always been since time immemorial: TREASON!”
“Today our political reality is a polarized democracy, a people transformed by decades of Conservative laissez-faire politics from a 1970 industrial nation of “prosperity for all” to a 1980s Republican engineered “Trickle-Down” Society of the “SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, a People of Liberty made “SURPLUS” in a “LIVES FOR PROFIT” predatory state of “HUMAN BONDAGE.” We are a nation bankrupt and divided, Bill, public values, integrity, and truth have withered, and now in this crisis moment of “LIBERTY OR DEATH,” we are a compromised democracy on the verge of disintegration.
“The Republican 1971 strategic offensive of deceit and “betrayal” to “Save Capitalism from Democracy” is TODAY the Republican 1981 revolutionary vision of “scorched earth” DEREGULATION of the rule of law in business and finance, DEINDUSTRIALIZATION, WEALTH CONCENTRATION, MONOPOLY PRIMACY, WEALTHY TAX CUTS, and CASINO CAPITALISM
“Regardless the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2024, the Republican promised agenda for a 2025 America is the Conservative Fifty-Year strategy for a Republican transformation of American democracy into a “fascist” authoritarian financial oligarchy of concentrated wealth, economic dominance, and absolute political power.
“The 1971 Republican “Powell” declaration of war against America’s democracy and the American middle class set in motion the Conservative 1981 implementation of the Republican strategic plan to destroy democracy as know it, politicize the criminal justice system and the electoral process in favor of the “dark money” power elite. Our American democracy in this American moment, Bill, is a nation of state sponsored inequality, a casino” society of profiteers, a financialized monopoly economy, and a people’s debt-based existence. It’s time we must remind ourselves, Bill, as Dietrich Bonheoffer warned, that “TO SEE EVIL AND NOT CALL IT EVIL IS EVIL; NOT TO SPEAK IS TO SPEAK; NOT TO ACT IS TO ACT.”
“The decades absence of an honest functioning two-party system dedicated to a bi-partisan advancement of the “national interest” and the “common good” is today our present political reality of the fifty-year Conservative legacy of Republican “Profit over People” “dark money” funded political betrayal, political subversion, and political sedition. And the alternative isn’t pretty. Thomas Jefferson commented on this reality in 1816, warning that if the “voice of the whole people” be “shut-off to the call of sufferance,” it “will make itself heard through” the “endless cycle of oppression, rebellion, reformation.”
“The fury of the America’s Conservative apocalypse is at this moment knocking at Freedom’s Door. Democracy in America is broken; but, alas, not yet dead. In 2024, Bill, we have as a People of Liberty one “final” electoral moment to save Democracy for a people’s America of “LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.”
“As a People of Liberty we must in this crisis of democracy, be Courageous and Steadfast “In God We Trust,” ASSURED the Battle for Democracy “Of , By, and For the People” will triumph over the corruption of Republican deceit, lies, and “dark money” political-economic oppression. The Election of 2024 is the “last battle” in the coming final struggle for DEMOCRACY in America. For the people of America in this decisive electoral moment, as Edmund Burke so
gravely observed, “THE ONLY THING FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH IS FOR GOOD PEOPLE TO DO NOTHING.”
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow,” warned Abraham Lincoln, “by evading it today.” Tomorrow’s political reality of Freedom and Democracy in America is in our hands. The choice for every citizen in 2024, Bill, is very straight forward as historian Matt Stoller forewarned in 2019,noting that we vote to knowingly allow “a small aristocracy governing…to serve concentrated power, or free ourselves from concentrated power.”
“The Hour has Come; the Moment is Here; the Time is Now for the return of Democracy, Truth, and Justice to America, Bill. 2024 may very well be America’s “one time” opportunity for a free democratic people to EMBRACE the “truth” of today’s political reality; RETURN the “rule of law” to American business, finance, and politics; and RESTORE America’s founding vision of a democracy “for the people” Constitutionally dedicated to “insure domestic Tranquility … establish Justice … promote the general Welfare … and secure the Blessings of Liberty … for ourselves and our posterity.” It is now for every of citizen to pick up the Torch of Liberty and “bring light into the darkness” for one America of Liberty, Truth, and Justice.”
A PEOPLE OF LIBERTY
I WEEP to see a democratic
people once secure and
prosperous today Discarded,
Impoverished, and Destitute
I FEEL the raging fury of “Power
for Profit” ravaging a People of
Liberty engulfed in Desperation,
Want and Despair
I SEE in the stillness of our
Disquiet and Hope, the Torch
of Liberty shining brightly for
an America “Forever Free”
“WE THE PEOPLE”
A “PEOPLE OF LIBERTY” we
say. Yes, despite everything.
THIS “IS” WHO WE ARE!