Fuddy-duddies sure are abundant in the bla-o-sphere

Forrest Johnson

What a bunch of fuddy-duddies there are in the right wing blab-o-sphere. Aggressive policy efforts to curb climate change are “too idealistic and expensive” while Medicare-for-All is “too socialistic and expensive” according to the fuddy-duddies. No, the fuddy-duddies have no plans to confront any of our social issues, from racism to health care or the environment, but they sure are opinionated about how bad the ideas from the new “socialist left” happen to be.

Don’t even get me started on where the conservative deficit hawks are hiding these days as we enable the rich and corporations with tax giveaways and ramp up military spending with no revenue to support the lavish spending habits of the right wing blab-o-sphere. Herds of deficit hawks roamed the countryside during the Obama administration, nipping at nearly every policy idea with notions of the impending collapse of the economy if we DIDN”T GET THE DEFICIT UNDER CONTROL!

I’ve often asked the question about how many right wing/conservative social and political policy ideas in our long history have actually improved the common good and moved the nation forward, not backward. Hmm. Let me see. Well, there’s… Can you think of one?

In the meantime, the fuddy-duddies are frothing at the mouth about immigration and border walls and a humanitarian crisis while at the same time failing to offer a single idea about what to do about immigration policy. Oh, I guess getting “tough” on immigration is the start of an idea but it fails to actually deal with Dreamers and millions of migrant workers who are here without visas or passports or green cards. Where is the right wing policy other than to say that “those illegal immigrants” had a chance to become citizens the “right way” instead of sneaking into the lettuce and bean fields to earn a living. Yes, instead of understanding the reality that up to eleven million people are here, many working under intolerable conditions and living in segregated migrant communities, the fuddy-duddies will simply repeat and repeat that we have to get “tough” on immigration.

Ask the fuddy-duddy near you about education in poor communities. Ask the fuddy-duddy near you about pollution and clean water and air. Ask the fuddy-duddy about the more than trillion dollars of student loan debt for young people just starting out in life when every other developed nation offers free or low cost education as an investment in the future. 

What? Affordable education and a clean world and economy? Too expensive, they’ll shout! But don’t you worry, you fearful and penny-pinching fuddy-duddies. Blab-o-sphere pundit Marc A. Thiessen has the socialist left all figured out for you. Yes, those shifty leftists are proposing higher taxes on the rich! Yes, they’ll soak the millionaires and billionaires and mega-rich corporations to hand out all the free stuff like health care and a green economy and education, stuff those socialist countries like Canada and Germany and Denmark already provide.

“The old five-year plans of the former Soviet Union are modest, by comparison, in their pursuit of full socialism,” that crafty Thiessen said of the new leftist American socialists. He also pointed out the big “neo-socialist lie that you can get something for nothing. The Democratic Party’s embrace of that lie is going to get President Donald Trump re-elected.” I tell you, that Thiessen fellow must live under a big red scare rock.    Back to my earlier question. How many right wing/conservative social and political policy ideas in our long history have actually improved the common good and moved the nation forward, not backward?