We Must Never Forget

I hope will be forgiven for quoting a long section from a Daily Kos diary by Devilstower, because it says something that we must never allow to slip into the memory hole, and it says it in magnificent fashion. I strongly suggest you read the whole thing:

"Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. Think we should privatize war by handing unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Kiddo, we passed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries.

They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again"..." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream.

What did we get for it? We got an economy in ruins, a government in massive debt, unending war, and the repudiation of the world. There's no doubt that Republicans want you to forget the last decade, because if you remember... if you remember when you went down to the water hole and were jumped by every lunacy that ever emerged from the wet dreams of Grover Norquist and Dick Cheney, well, it's not likely that you'd give them a chance to do it again."

That's so good. I have been saying for decades now that the single biggest mistake Democrats make is to let Republicans off the hook, over and over again, for the damage that their phony ideology has done to the country. We let them rewrite the story of the disaster that was the Vietnam war. We let them spend decades trying to whitewash the character of Richard Nixon. We let them smear Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. We let them erect a hagiography around the criminal front-man Ronald Reagan. We let them lie their way out of the damage their economic theories caused in the form of the savings and loan collapse. And now, Democrats are standing by largely silent while Republicans construct a totally phony history to talk their way out of the disaster that their dream administration created.

This must stop. Never again can we afford to remain silent while they spread their lies. The price is too high.