In response to my “Of Course You Oppose Extremism!” beginning with a quote from that piece, Mark writes,

“’Worse still, how do you deal with a public that PAYS to hear someone repeat a tautology from an idiot who thinks he is saying something?’”

“I believe there are a lot more thinking people than any of give credit for. When I talk to people about the idiotic ideas liberals and respectable conservatives tout I’m amazed at how many people agree with my point of view. ”

“If you look back to the 1980’s and the Reagan Revolution (as an example only) one could be amazed at how many people converted from the old Roosevelt/Johnson era ideas to the “new” conservative ideas seemingly overnight. It took pain in the form of financial collapse before they took note, but change they did.”

“People today have eyes and ears and more are being forced to understand what is taking place in our world just by the problems 3rd world immigration is bringing. It may seem like we are on a sinking ship — and we probably are — but when the water gets to our knees people will have to start thinking for themselves again and that is when we will win the largest number of converts — tautology be damned. ”

Mark, I am getting a little tired of my commenters making better statements than I do, and I wish you would all take a sociology course or a government job to dumb yourseves down a little.

Mark’s statement is the exact opposite of the “ALL is lost! I told them and they didn’t listen so it’s not my fault” crowd.

The stone-faced “All is lost!” crowd obsesses on Reagan’s failures. “You see,” they say, there’s no hope, the Reagan Revolution didn’t change things in a REAL way.”

They seem to LOVE saying things like that.

The Reagan Revolution occurred in November of 1980. It was an earthquake. The national media openly admitted that they did have any contacts inside teh sudden new ruling class in Washington.

The media, you know, those “professional journalists” they keep talking about, knew plenty of oderate Republicans and liberal Democrats who had guided both parties and all policy up to then, but they didn’t know a soul among the thousands of new faces in 1981.

As with all sudden revolutions, Reagan got a lot of power and didn’t know what to do with it. I keep mentioning that Mousilini almost missed the March On Rome that put him in power.

Democrats, who had controlled both houses of congress since 1957, not only got bashed in the presidential election, but they lost the Senate, too.

Their one bastion was the House of Representatives. Despite the opposition of Bush, Senior, who lost the presidency in 1992, Gingirch moved to the hard right and the House has been in Republican hands ever since.

In 1992 Ross Perot was asked if he would be willing to run for president by Larry King and the next thing Perot knew he was was all fifty state ballots and leading both regular party candidates for the presidency.

He dropped out when he suddenly discovered that politics is a rough game. If he hadn’t, he would have been president and probably wouldn’t have had the vaguest idea about what to do with it.

Mark’s point is that the earthquake fault is right there. I started sounding like an “All is lost!” type and he called me on it.

Which is exactly what a commenter is supposed to do.

What I know and you need to know is that when you are suddenly in the seat of power, you are sledom ready for it.

You keep telling me that you feel odd talking about public policy with an old pro. Let me tell you a little secret. The old pro who has been fighting to take over for years has exactly the same feeling when he is suddenly thrust out of his career in opposition to being the one who has to MAKE policy.

Suddenly a bunch of top-level bureaucrats were asking ME what to do next. And I had to explain it all to the media. And I had to root out the traitors myself.

And Our Hero, Bob Whitaker, made a mess of it in many areas. I was responsible for the next clearance of the head of the Cuba Desk of the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was Hispanic and a graduate of an Ivy League school. I knew the probability was 99% that she was a Communist.

But nobody could AFFORD to say so, and I followed my bosses.

She is now in prison for being Castro’s agent.

The list is endless. I did a lot of good, but like most of us what I remember is when, in the sudden reversal of role into a power position, I followed the old rules.

You have to do what Mark has done, NOTICE the earthquake fault that keeps rumbling American politics.

And when it erupts, you must know what to do next.

We need more people than Bob Whitaker thinking this way. Bob can give a lot of very good things to think about, but you have to spread those thoughts, think about them, and make the future.

You need to find other people who can make the future. It is not easy for a people raised on various kinds of Wordism to be weaned from it. It is not easy to understand that there is no Book of Bob.

There is only we the people of the United States and our posterity.

You will have to do it all, including the thinking.