I started this essay a few days before the massacre of school children in Connecticut.\u00a0\u00a0Looking it over again this morning, I’m glad I didn’t finish it because the ground is shifting under our feet and maybe, just maybe,\u00a0the shaking has brought us to our senses.\u00a0 Well, maybe not ALL of us, but enough to break out of the mental and emotional prison that has built up over the past thirty years.<\/p>\n

What got me thinking about all of this was an interview last week on MSNBC of the\u00a0father of\u00a0a black teenager killed in Florida by a man who didn’t like the loud music the kids were playing in their car.\u00a0 The man told the kids to turn it down, they didn’t, so he shot them.\u00a0 The father of the dead boy was asked how African-American parents prepare their children to live in a racist society where they are in danger wherever they go.\u00a0 The father’s reply got me thinking about how\u00a0impotent our elected representatives in the national Congress are today compared with decades past.<\/p>\n

The father of the slain teenager said he thought America was better than that now.\u00a0 He recalled growing up in NYC during the 70’s when civil rights was the topic of the day and everyone made an effort to do the right thing.\u00a0 His son had friends of all colors and nationalities, so he hadn’t had “that conversation that every African American parent dreads” with him.\u00a0When asked about Florida’s “stand your ground” law and millions of residents with concealed carry permits, the grieving father said that the federal government used to\u00a0step in when states “got too far out of line.”<\/p>\n

That reminded me of how President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock in 1957 to guard the first few black students at the high school.\u00a0 Each student was assigned a soldier to accompany him\/her throughout the day to classes.\u00a0 Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 actually meant something, and the federal government intended to enforce the law of the land.<\/p>\n

As devastating as it would be for his own political party, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.\u00a0 He knew his party would “lose the South for a generation.”\u00a0 The following decade, even under Republican presidents Nixon and Ford,\u00a0 we saw an explosion of progressive laws, especially those protecting the environment.\u00a0 Acid rain from factories in the midwest was killing trees and making people sick in New England, so we had to control that for the benefit of the common good.\u00a0 We could do things like that back then.\u00a0 We thought of ourselves as one nation, and we would no more harm our neighbors in other states than we would our neighbors next door.<\/p>\n

When I taught American history in the 1980’s, I used Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s Cycles of American History<\/span>\u00a0 because it was so obvious.\u00a0 I’d draw a long wavy line across the blackboard with the progressive eras on top and conservative backlash eras on the bottom.\u00a0 Every 30 years like clockwork, the mood of the country would shift.\u00a0 I’d walk\u00a0five steps forward and two steps back to explain why the conservative cycles were necessary.\u00a0 People need time to adapt to change, try the new rules on for size and adapt them as necessary.<\/p>\n

After the explosive changes of the 60’s and 70’s, it was time for two or three steps back.\u00a0 During the\u00a0Reagan era, people stepped back to take a breath and digest all that had happened to our society.\u00a0 It was during this needed pause that the conservatives regrouped and solidified their agenda.\u00a0\u00a0Presidential historian,\u00a0Douglas Brinkley said the other night on TV that the Roosevelt Era actually lasted until 1980 when the Reagan Revolution\u00a0stopped it dead in its tracks.<\/p>\n

One of the new “free market” groups\u00a0that\u00a0grew out of the frustration of conservatives\u00a0during the 60’s and 70’s was the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.)\u00a0 With strong financial support from corporations, ALEC is able to host conferences where they bring state legislators together with lobbyists and officers of private companies to write model bills which then go back to the states for debate and votes.\u00a0 If you can picture the “alumni” of\u00a0these ALEC get-togethers as tadpoles turned into\u00a0huge, angry frogs obsessed with having their own way, you\u00a0might better understand why the U.S. House of Representatives last night had to leave town without voting on a tax bill.\u00a0 The\u00a0ALEC\u00a0graduates in the House truly believe\u00a0the government has no business helping individual citizens and should dismantle all the public programs that make up our social safety net.\u00a0 Cut out food stamps and child care tax credits, but don’t annoy the billionaires who might want a new yacht for Christmas.<\/p>\n

Now\u00a0shift\u00a0that focus to the state level.\u00a0 Although Missouri has not received the national attention that Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Virginia recently have, we face many of the same issues \u2013 especially high levels of corporate political spending that can, if left unchecked, tip the balance of power away from our citizenry. \u00a0 ALEC’s destructive power is most obvious when it comes to public education in Missouri.\u00a0 In fact, Missouri gets the top grade in ALEC’s “Scorecard” for moving away from support for public education.\u00a0 Whether it’s workers’ rights, pension funds, environmental regulations, photo ID laws, or “repealing Obamacare,” the end goal is the same – moving power and wealth from the many to the few.<\/p>\n

Look at this link to one of ALEC’s web pages.<\/a><\/p>\n

Then compare ALEC’s list of legislative priorities with those of the new Speaker of the Missouri House, Rep. Tim Jones.\u00a0 The list might be reworded or shuffled around, but the\u00a0goals are the same. Rep.\u00a0Tim Jones is the co-chair of the Missouri delegation to ALEC meetings.\u00a0 He held a “get acquainted” event in the Capitol building last spring and encouraged members to attend.\u00a0 His plan now is to remodel the historic Capitol building to\u00a0put offices for Republican legislators in the areas currently set aside for the public and the press.\u00a0 There seems to be no end to this man’s\u00a0drive for power.\u00a0 He could very well end up an ALEC “alum” in the U.S. Congress if we don’t stop him at this level.<\/p>\n

So what is giving me this glimmer of hope that we might actually be able to unite for the common good again?\u00a0\u00a0Reactions to the Connecticut massacre\u00a0by individuals all over the country, even owners of stores that sell assault rifles and private equity firms who are selling their shares of gun manufacturing companies, make me believe there might be a chance to revive what we’ve lost in recent decades – a sense of community and caring for our fellow citizens.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u00a0said it better than any of us can.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we\u2019re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enjoy some holiday cheer. Then get ready to storm the barricades.<\/p>\n

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I started this essay a few days before the massacre of school children in Connecticut.\u00a0\u00a0Looking it over again this morning, I’m glad I didn’t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":628,"featured_media":21100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1315,843,273,1656,172,119,10,16,1253,834],"tags":[957,1510,1658,31],"yoast_head":"\n