From Truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/a-rich-fantasy-life67572
Wednesday 09 February 2011
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
I know I should be immune to this by now, but I still find myself awestruck by the incredibly detailed, insulated fantasy world that the American conservative “movement” has created for themselves. No lie is too big to be told, no fact is too firm to be bent around ideology, no myth is too absurd to defend to the knife. The ability to spew deliberate nonsense into the credulous ears of Fox-watching right-bent voters – and to be utterly without shame while doing it – is the core of this “movement’s” political muscle, and has been for a number of decades now.
Take, for example, this past weekend’s festival of Reagan. The late president’s 100th birthday opened the floodgates for an ocean of nonsense to be dumped on the American people. He was a great leader, the conservative’s conservative, a small-government hero who deserves a place on Mt. Rushmore.
Really?
Ronald Reagan’s “supply side” economic model was the gateway drug that led inexorably to the collapse of the American economy two years ago, and yet his conservative acolytes – as well as far too many Democrats who should know better – still cling to that economic model as if it were holy writ.
Ronald Reagan raised taxes massively, and grew the federal government enormously, while sending the country spiraling into a morass of debt we are nowhere near recovering from, and yet his worshippers continue to tout him as the perfect “small government” man.
Continue reading at: http://www.truth-out.org/a-rich-fantasy-life67572