link:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/120210.html<snip>
In assessing what went wrong with the U.S. political process over the past few decades, it’s easy to see the broad outlines of the right-wing Republican ascendancy and the liberal-left Democratic decline, an imbalance that has now left the nation incapable of doing much besides waging endless wars, bailing out too-big-to-fail banks, slashing taxes for the rich, and running massive deficits.
But how this systemic failure occurred is more complicated – and the blame must be shared by all the players, including the mainstream news media, which adapted to the flood of right-wing propaganda by avoiding pitched battles for the truth, and the progressive community, which adopted misguided strategies that failed to counter the Right’s surging media power.
Without doubt, the Right and the Republicans were the chief protagonists in this historical chapter. In the 1970s, they reacted with a fierce determination to the threats they saw in the massive anti-Vietnam War protests and in a more independent news media, revealed by the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.
Wealthy right-wingers began investing heavily in a media infrastructure to promote their views and to attack their adversaries, including going after mainstream journalists who dug up information that undermined the favored propaganda of rightists from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush.
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There is a lot more at the link and worth the read...
During the late Sixties and early Seventies, leaders on the left were assassinated, put in jail, marginalized, or just put on ignore.
In the mid-sixties and early seventies the right wing made a major effort to expand their power by investing into think tanks to fuel the media with marketable propaganda. These institutions were given creditability while environmentalist, animal rights, women's rights, and others including vegetarians (more of dietary option than political choice) were labeled the extreme (loony) left and a major waste of time, resources, and money. Many Television Stations took the news out of a independent news department and put into the entertainment department so those shows would make more money. We will not dwell on funds removed from the public education system in the name of tax cuts i.e. saving money. Businesses needing the free-market system (i.e. deregulate) so those institutions can make more money. What all of this comes down to is the worship of power, the rich, and money. Politicians on the right promise their constituents, with their philosophy of society and law, an individual can be empowered to have more power and money. People in this society buy this bullshit hook, line, and sinker, hence the country keeps moving to the right. This should answer your question!
BTW: Carter, for his efforts to invest into alternative energy was given a label of the loony left. Since the late Nineteen Fifties, the U.S.A. was fighting a war in Vietnam which was very expensive. By 1971, paying for that war put a strain on national resources (i.e. the gold reserve). Because of this situation Nixon changed our monetary system. The system was changed from a money backed currency (the Bretton Woods system) to a fiat currency (now known as the Nixon Shock). As far as Carter being a fiscal conservative, the real truth is he was attempting to get a handle on a out of control economy handed to him by the previous administrations.