Before dawn on a wickedly cold and rainy Thursday morning, fast food workers in black hoodies and t-shirts gathered on a parking lot on Lindell Blvd in St. Louis. They planned to have a peaceful pubic protest to call for a living wage for their labor.\u00a0Also there: a crowd of people, including me, oft denigrated as \u201cactivists.\u201d We marched to \u2013 and through \u2013 a McDonalds, heard prayers and short speeches in front of Dominos, Rally\u2019s and Arby\u2019s, then visited a Jack In The Box where the agitated manager locked the doors rather than have the crowd walk through.<\/p>\n

Among the activists were several of us who in previous days had been to a \u201ctable talk\u201d conducted by Senator Claire McCaskill\u2019s office, visited Senator Roy Blunt\u2019s Clayton office to talk hunger and food stamps, and attended a program on immigration reform.<\/p>\n

Astrophysicists are working towards a Grand Unifying Theory, the next step past the Standard Model, to explain how interactions among electromagnetism and the weak and strong forces can be reliably described in terms of coupling constants.\u00a0After that work is done, add-in gravity\u2019s role and the elusive Theory Of Everything should come into focus.\u00a0 In other words, the GUT leads to the TOE.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, a small portion of this community keeps pushing for a Grand Unifying Theory of societal action.\u00a0We firmly believe that everyone is better off if all are treated fairly.\u00a0 All spheres \u2013 government, education, religion, employers and employees included \u2013 need to conduct themselves for the good of all.\u00a0We\u2019re well aware that Missouri\u2019s motto \u201cThe welfare of the people shall be the supreme law\u201d <\/i><\/b>is more than gold lettering in the walls of the Capitol.\u00a0\u00a0It is a statement of principle codified many generations ago by people (well, middle aged and old white men) determined to structure a state where every person was treated fairly, giving them an opportunity to earn success.<\/p>\n

Supporting pantries which feed the hungry is a vital activity, and working for better pay and more job opportunities so most don\u2019t need free food is the critical next step.<\/p>\n

Despite noise and misgivings from Republicans, the New Deal and the War on Poverty made life better for Americans.\u00a0Wires to provide electric and phone service reached remote farm families.\u00a0 Factory owners had to follow rules on hours and wages.\u00a0The old and disabled received a bit of help. Struggling families got food, access to medical care and other basic help.\u00a0For an entire political generation, from the 1930\u2019s through the 1960\u2019s, the United States government and state governments (mostly using federal funds) made determined efforts to make life better for everyone.\u00a0They carried out that quest despite economic hardship, the greatest war in human history, two other major military conflicts and a costly Cold War against the Soviet Union.\u00a0Yes, government got bigger but life got better.\u00a0 Poverty retreated from the lives of tens of millions of Americans.<\/p>\n

Not everyone liked that success, however.<\/p>\n

While today’s Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as their risen savior, the man who started putting government back in its small place,\u00a0I think credit or, more correctly, blame ought to go to Richard M. Nixon.<\/p>\n

Nixon came of age during that great era of government working to help Americans.\u00a0He had seen at point blank range the positive impact of Interstate Highways, Social Security and other \u2018big government\u2019 activities.\u00a0Yet, he knew that a portion of the population \u2013 a shadowy sliver \u2013 hated the good that government did and the people helped.\u00a0Nixon courted the Tea Party\u2019s grandfathers, especially in the South.\u00a0Note that despite the presence of George Wallace on the ballot, Nixon carried both Carolinas, Kentucky and Tennessee, Oklahoma and Missouri in 1968.<\/p>\n

Rather than promote consensus, Nixon\u2019s administration encouraged division.\u00a0From Vice President Spiro Agnew:<\/p>\n

There are some people in our society who should be separated and discarded\u2026and we\u2019re always going to have a certain number of people <\/i><\/p>\n

in our community who have no desire to achieve or even to even fit in in an amicable way with the rest of society.\u00a0 And these people should <\/i><\/p>\n

be separated from the community, not in a callous way but they should be separated as far as any idea that their opinions shall have any <\/i><\/p>\n

effect on the course we follow.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>[Washington Post <\/i>7-2-70 & other sources]<\/i><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

In other words, if you\u2019re not like \u201cus,\u201d we won\u2019t listen to you.<\/p>\n

Country club Republicans, cordial GOP leaders like Ike, were moving off the stage. Despite the service of people with honor and principles (such as Missouri\u2019s John Danforth,) the party moved to placate John Wayne and\u00a0other members of the John Birch Society.<\/p>\n

Ronald Reagan put a friendly face on the new philosophy but he did his best to widen the crack.\u00a0He had learned (as have other Republicans) that the trick was to appeal to that radical right, then soften the message just enough so that minivan drivers didn\u2019t feel guilty voting Republican.<\/p>\n

Many of us active in the non-profit world remember the early 1980\u2019s.\u00a0Not fondly.\u00a0During Reagan\u2019s first term we had to form the food pantry association to assist those creating hundreds of new pantries about the region.\u00a0No one wanted to open a food pantry but they realized their neighborhood suddenly needed one.\u00a0Community action agencies found their money coming from state-administered block grants.\u00a0The first thing Missouri did, as did most states, was carve a big chunk off the top for administration.\u00a0To save oversight costs, Metroplex (where I worked for six years) got paid by the state for \u201cregistering\u201d poor people \u2013 getting their basic information on a signed form \u2013 rather than for actually delivering needed services.<\/p>\n

During Reagan\u2019s second term, funding for HUD was chopped by 40%.\u00a0As a result of that cut and subsequent neglect, each year fewer Americans live in affordable housing.<\/p>\n

Both of the tag team Bush followed Dutch Reagan\u2019s lead.\u00a0The one time George H.W. Bush dared to compromise, with a very mild tax increase,\u00a0 he soon had plenty of time to skydive and do other things in his retirement.<\/p>\n

Newt Gingrich, Denny Hastert and now John Boehner work hard to exploit the divide Nixon opened up.\u00a0The irony, of course, is that once you cater to the radical fringe you\u2019re stuck with them as they keep moving the agenda further and further right.<\/p>\n

Note that Grover Norquist and his \u201cnever never\u201d tax hike pledge once represented the ideological edge of the right. Today he\u2019s mainstream.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s become hard to find the place on the map where political ideas become even too far out for the modern Republican. \u00a0Here in Missouri our legislature actually passed a law making it a crime for federal law enforcement personnel to do their job.\u00a0Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Louis Gohmert, both from Texas, routinely say things to reporters (for example, Gohmert implied that Senator John McCain had terrorist links) that even make many in the Tea Party cringe.\u00a0Yet,\u00a0Speaker Boehner gave Gohmert a half hour of precious House floor time to say Americans would be better off without health insurance.\u00a0Then, when we went into the hospital through the emergency room, before treatment we could negotiate an inclusive price for our care and sign a promissory note: if we couldn\u2019t agree on a price, we could go to the next hospital and strike a deal with them.\u00a0 [CSpan1, 3:30 p.m. 12\/11\/14]<\/b>\u00a0Meanwhile, Cruz was on Fox News.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe even as calculating an SOB as Nixon could have seen how his plan is destroying America’s middle class.<\/p>\n

A member of the Missouri Secretary of State\u2019s office recently told me that up to 40 initiative petitions may wind up getting approved for circulation this year.\u00a0{Disclosure: I am a board member of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare which has filed suit over the condensed wording of one petition, to add a 1\u00a2 per dollar sales tax for transportation.\u00a0We\u2019re not pro-pot hole, we are against regressive sales taxes.}\u00a0 Besides calling for a sales tax for roads, there are already proposals to\u00a0slash taxes on businesses and upper-income people, repeal limits on concealed guns, turn Missouri into a “right to work” state and other controversial topics\u00a0working their way through the Secretary\u2019s office.\u00a0Without a Democratic governor, all those ideas\u00a0would be one afternoon\u2019s work for the current membership of the Missouri Legislature.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time for a gut check.<\/p>\n

You can join those of us working hard on many topics towards restoring the state motto and fighting Washington efforts to hurt our neighbors.\u00a0 You can join those who\u00a0want to create a state and a nation where the lucky and the rich thrive by kicking everyone else out of their privileged way.\u00a0Or, like most people, you can sit back and complain but do nothing.<\/p>\n

Choose wisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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