Poppy Was Right

Retrospectively, George Herbert Walker Bush was right, at least on two counts.

First, he correctly identified Ronald Reagan's economic policy as "Voodoo Economics."

Enough said about that.

Second, he was right about the "Thousand Points of Light" but in an unintended way.

Republicans contend that The United States would function better, if not perfectly, if there were less government intrusion.

Less tax, less regulation, less Federal involvment. "Less is more."

And they seem to be right. Because of the policies of the Reagan and both Bush administrations, we have a ground swell of grass roots organizations creating noise and having effect. Populist fervor is taking hold.

From "Occupy Wall Street" and "Bank Transfer Day" to the protests last year in Wisconsin, the people are rising up and making their feelings known.

Now the disconnect between the action in the street and the Republican philosophy is this: the reason that the people are taking to the streets is because the policies of the GOP have created the opposite of what we were sold as a part of the "Trickle Down Theory."

The only thing that has trickled down is what usually flows down hill...and you know what that is, dear reader.

The wealthy have just gotten more so and the poor have increased their ranks by welcoming the former middle class. There are more Brooks Brothers suits on the soup lines today then faded jeans. SUVs can carry a lot of scrap metal and blood, blue as well as red, is selling like sausage.

So the irony of the tale is that the NeoCon thinking of the recent past has yielded the very thing it adverstised, only in reverse. Rather than more prosperity across the board, it has created real class warfare. Less government has brought us civic action and may yet bring us much needed "change." Real change, mind you, not the slogans and empty rhetoric of the Obama campaign. And that change may not be pretty.

So the "light" is coming from a "thousand points."

But the dowagers had better guard their jewels. The natives are restless and the cauldron's getting hotter by the minute...