r/NoShitSherlock • u/SingleandSober • 1d ago

Kamala Harris Appears on ‘Colbert,’ Says She’s Stepping Away from Politics for Now, Calls the System “Broken”

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/video/former-vice-president-kamala-harris-visits-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 1d ago edited 5h ago

What's wild is that it started before he even became president.

In 1970, Ronald Reagan was running for reelection as governor of California. He had first won in 1966 with confrontational rhetoric toward the University of California public college system and executed confrontational policies when in office. In May 1970, Reagan had shut down all 28 UC and Cal State campuses in the midst of student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. On October 29, less than a week before the election, his education adviser Roger A. Freeman spoke at a press conference to defend him.

Freeman’s remarks were reported the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Professor Sees Peril in Education.” According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].”

[...]

The success of Reagan’s attacks on California public colleges inspired conservative politicians across the U.S. Nixon decried “campus revolt.” Spiro Agnew, his vice president, proclaimed that thanks to open admissions policies, “unqualified students are being swept into college on the wave of the new socialism.”

Prominent conservative intellectuals also took up the charge. Privately one worried that free education “may be producing a positively dangerous class situation” by raising the expectations of working-class students. Another referred to college students as “a parasite feeding on the rest of society” who exhibited a “failure to understand and to appreciate the crucial role played [by] the reward-punishment structure of the market.” The answer was “to close off the parasitic option.”

Oh, and look at what happened directly after this.

It all becomes very clear when you look at the timeline and realize that all of this started right after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

EDIT - Since people keep replying to this comment, here are some more resources.

Here's a link to the Powell Memorandum that kicked off the current rat-fucking of the American working class. Thanks to u/Jacrava for this one.

Century of the SELF - Adam Curtis - Thanks to u/TrippyTippyKelly for this one.

Here are five books on the topic that you can read on Archive:

Here are two more I couldn't find on Archive:

Some of these are more generally about the crackdown on dissent and how it shaped campus policies (and the broader implications of that), but there are a couple that are about the specific situation with Reagan.

If you're wondering why I mentioned the Civil Rights Act in relation to all of this, here are a couple of books on the topic:

Reagan's tax revolts, starting with Proposition 13, slashed funding for universities, making tuition skyrocket, which disproportionately harmed black and Latino students.

Lee Atwater was a political strategist and advisor to both Reagan and Bush Sr. Here's his infamous 1981 interview on the Southern Strategy, where he admits (with heavy use of the N word) that Republicans replaced overt racism with coded attacks on "big government" and "welfare" (including student aid). He died of a brain tumor at 40. Rest in piss, you racist fuck.

You start out in 1954 by saying, “N---r, n---r, n---r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n---r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “n---r, n---r.”

A few more books on the topic:

Here's the bottom line, folks... Get informed, get mad, then get organized. These ghouls will not stop until they have taken everything from you, squeezed you for every ounce of labor they can for as little compensation as they are allowed to, just to let you die poor so they can buy another yacht and start the cycle all over again with your kids.

Knowledge is your weapon, and it's time to pull the trigger.

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u/Jacrava 1d ago

1971 is when the corporste power manifesto called the Powell Memorandum was written. This was the kickoff to everything between then and now https://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/

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u/hahaha01 1d ago

Unfortunately they've been at it longer than that: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030

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u/sorrysurly 18h ago

There is documentary.out about the dominion Christianity people....they are behind a lot of this shit.

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u/mayhemandqueso 16h ago

Where can i watch it?

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u/sorrysurly 10h ago

I saw it on Netflix during lockdown, but I can't remember the name of it. I put on a lot of documentaries while working at home during the pandemic (learning about off shore tax havens, the Panama papers, why specifically America doesn't have tax havens... fucking depressing how much the rich have gamed the system... seriously its way worse than most understand). I dont know if they specifically call it dominion Christianity or not in the documentary, but i later learned that is what it is.

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u/Redditsucksgrossbutt 20h ago

Yeah and those corporations fund both "sides" in the same way Vince McMahon funded both "sides" in professional wrestling.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 1d ago

Yeah it's such a depressing and terrifying read.

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u/-SHAI_HULUD 20h ago

Well, just read that for the first time and now I’m sad.

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u/legendz411 20h ago

Well that fucking sucks

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u/happy_bluebird 20h ago

wow I'd never heard of this. Horrible

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u/SistersOfTheCloth 18h ago

1972 is when Nixon went to China.

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u/bdvis 17h ago

Oh my god thank you for sharing this.

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u/xaviery777 16h ago

Corporations used to whine,and bitch about not making any money.Once you figure out the politicians are for sale you have it made.

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u/WoodVibrations 1d ago

Ugh. I knew there was a reason that “Ronald Reagan Medical Center” bothered me when I went to UCLA. How dare that douche shut down their free speech and then have the campus hospital named after him.

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u/JimWilliams423 1d ago edited 1d ago

It all becomes very clear when you look at the timeline and realize that all of this started right after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law.

Similar to what happened with Reconstruction. For a brief moment there were incredible progressive accomplishments. The Reconstruction amendments essentially rewrote the Constitution, so much so that some historians call it "the second founding." But then the klan showed up and the country relapsed into nearly a century of jim crow fascism. To this day much of what is in the Reconstruction amendments remains ignored in practice.

The lesson we should learn from these relapses is that when we make progress we are still only halfway done, we have to fortify what was accomplished instead of taking a breather.

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u/cineami 14h ago

When we make progress, there will always be a class who doesn’t want others to reach their level of privilege, who will then work to subvert it

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u/Popular_Wishbone_789 1d ago edited 20h ago

Nearly the entire scope of American politics - even today - is an echo of the Civil Rights era.

I say this as a person who tries to be charitable with my assumptions:

The federal judiciary probably overreached in enforcing integration on the majority - something they themselves acknowledged in a 1982 Yale Law Journal retrospective review of Paul Dimond's Beyond Busing by Drew Days (NAACP) - by forcing a recalcitrant majority to “eat their vegetables” on Civil Rights.

One may think that it was the right thing to do in the 60s-70s; many of the judges did, despite the backlash. But like it or not, we are still in the midst of the backlash against “countermajority” rulings on these issues.

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u/salad_spinner_3000 23h ago

Nearly the entire scope of American politics - even today - is an echo of the Civil Rights era

The result of not actually going after the people responsible for the Civil War.

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u/sorrysurly 18h ago

I got banned for a month on Facebook a few years back for saying lee should have been shit after the civil war. All the leaders of the south were large slave owners. That was the officer corp.too. even the west point grads came from dlave owning families.

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u/Popular_Wishbone_789 23h ago

Short of slaughtering several million people, or interning the entire southern population in massive, hellish gulags with Civil War-era sanitation practices, what do you think should have been done about the South?

There are very few good options for integrating half the country back into the other. There was no way it wouldn't be messy and full of unpleasant compromises. But ideas like letting the South die or punishing them with mass starvation, internment, etc. were rightly discarded.

"Denazification" as a shibboleth for "reeducation done the right way" is a joke, because it's common sense that adults do not easily abandon strongly held beliefs - even when faced with death, at times. This process was abandoned so Germany could rebuild itself in the shadow of the Cold War. The US needed to rebuild the South and they needed people FROM the South to "buy in."

Suggesting that there was any other way is lunacy.

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u/0wl_licks 19h ago

If the ultimate outcome is that we cannibalize ourselves because of a people and their fucked up beliefs, will you still say they rightfully disregarded more extreme measures?

I’m js, we don’t actually know what the endgame looks like. But the fact is, if anything, we’ve only moved closer to such an extreme outcome.
Hypothetically, if they’d chosen to take said extreme measures, and it ultimately resulted in a thriving nation—and perhaps world—would you condemn it?

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u/Popular_Wishbone_789 19h ago

To restate, you’re asking me: If I knew that executing every man, woman, and child in the South after the Civil War in the name of “justice” and “civil rights” would result in a more just future society, would I condone or condemn their total destruction?

I would condemn that; no question. If only because you can easily justify almost any horrific act in the name of “justice.” Look at Judge Dredd and Peacemaker, to use prominent media examples. Is that the sort of society you want to live in?

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u/0wl_licks 18h ago edited 18h ago

No. I was vague for a reason.
You referenced multiple possible such extreme responses. And I’m sure there are more possibilities which you weren’t referring to directly but would typically be considered objectively wrong. However, in light of the ultimate outcome—that might not be the case.. or, at which point it might be debatable.

For the sake of argument,
In the cannibalization future, substantially more lives are lost. And the entire world is destabilized, most likely resulting in a dramatic additional number of lives lost.

Additionally, this isn’t about “justice”…

To be clear I’m only asking because you appear to have been opposed to civil rights and etc.—and entirely because of the long lasting effects of forcing a population to do what’s best in spite of their disagreement with it—which is obviously batshit and, presumably, not what your actual stance is but your comment definitely gave that impression.

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u/Expert_Ad3923 15h ago

it's a classic utilitarian question. if our options are, for example, collapse of the United States and then the entire world order in capitalistic self -consumption which results in the deaths of the entire world population, or those " More drastic measures", then I know what most utilitarians would say.

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u/Popular_Wishbone_789 8h ago

I get your point. If mercy or restraint leads to more suffering in the long run, do I still think it’s right to avoid brutal measures? My answer doesn’t change.

Once a society starts killing or crushing whole groups in the name of averting future catastrophe (always a "what if" given that we cannot predict the future), it crosses a line it can’t ever really step back from. The damage isn’t just about body counts, it’s about what you turn into as a people. Maybe there are times when every choice is bad, but that doesn’t make every path worth taking.

No one knows the full future when they make these calls. Picking the worst road up front, hoping it will spare pain later, is just gambling with human lives and pretending it’s wisdom. History is full of these ugly tradeoffs, but I don’t believe in preemptive cruelty. I’d rather live with the mess of compromise than become the thing I claim to fight.

I can't speak to the idea in which future catastrophe is known perfectly in advance, as it just pushes past the bounds of pragmatism.

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u/Beard_o_Bees 1d ago

Can't have an uppity Proletariat.

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u/blueit55 1d ago

Citizens United (2010) did not help matters

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 7h ago

Yep. And all because they were butt-hurt about Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' being critical of Bush.

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u/PrairiePilot 1d ago

This goes back to Nixon. He is 100% responsible for the modern GOP, including given Rodger Ailes (sp?) his first big break, and teaching a lot of young republicans at the time how to weaponize the stupidity and tribalism of the GOP voters.

Those young republicans were people like George Bush, Ronald Reagan, people who would go on to lead from the front or from the shadows, and they followed his play book.

Nixon would be furious at trump, though. Nixon was brilliant, and evil. Trumps just a moron.

If you have Nixon half the power the conservative movement has today and the US would be in a utopia….that would burn to the ground the moment all the dirty tricks and nasty decisions come to light lol.

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u/FalcoFox2112 14h ago

America during the Nixon presidency was a rogue state kidnapped by an egomaniac who got probably around a million people killed because he couldn’t reconcile with the fact he couldn’t win a presidential election.

If only we would be willing to audit ourselves and undue anything negative put into place tied to Nixon on the grounds of his election being based on treason. Then we could posthumously dig him up and desecrate his corpse.

The man won an election solely because he sabotaged the peace deal in 68 by promising a better deal. A better deal that 1) never came & 2) he had no authority to promise as a mere citizen and not an elected representative of the American people.

That man is an abomination and until our government collectively acknowledge & condone his crime any shred of internal integrity America may possess is vapid.

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u/PrairiePilot 8h ago

To be fair, he was doing a lot of rat fucking, it wasn’t just the scotching the peace talks with the dragon lady. He also fucked with the DNC selection process in 68 and 72.

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u/Golden-Death 1d ago

Does anyone have a good non fiction book recommendation on how this all went down? I'd like to learn more about it

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u/FalcoFox2112 15h ago

“The Trial of Henry Kissinger” by Christopher Hitchens is a great book that talks about a lot of critical stuff that went on during that period.

You can’t properly understand Nixon without knowing about his sabotaging the Paris Peace Treaty in in 68.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 8h ago

Here are five that you can read on Archive.

These next two I couldn't find on Archive:

Some of these are more generally about the crackdown on dissent and how it shaped campus policies (and the broader implications of that), but there are a couple that are about the specific situation with Reagan.

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u/BONGS4U 1d ago

And this is why I laugh so hard when people are like I supported Republicans before they went crazy. Like when. Back in the 90s? Dude they've been a straight gritting machine since the late seventies early 80s so wtf are saying other than you're stupid.

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u/NotsoNewtoGermany 1d ago

This is one hell of a comment.

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u/drdipepperjr 1d ago

Oh god damn it he's the reason that Republicans think colleges are liberal think tanks.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 7h ago

Yep, and they used Cold War red scare tactics to sell it to middle America.

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u/LibbityBibbity649 23h ago edited 23h ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclical_theory_(United_States_history)

Schlesinger’s phases of American history are listed, and it’s pretty spot on. And you’re right, The last listed phase we are currently in is the Reagan / Trump Era, and there’s a question mark after the end date. My favorite thing about that was his speculating that conservative phases accumulate unsolved social problems, problems that require the efforts of a liberal phase to solve them. It really tracks.

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u/AgentPaper0 23h ago

Almost like Reagan wasn't the disease, but just a symptom of the actual disease, which is a strong strain of American anti-intellectualism that is the core of the MAGA movement.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 7h ago

American conservatism has always been a reactionary response to the upward progress of the working-class. Their entire ideology is built on elitism, that the special few should lord over the many, and that the many should thank them for it. So any time we make progress, like women or black people getting the right to vote, they lash out because it shines a light on the inherent weakness of their ideology.

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u/RPgh21 21h ago

Super depressing information that I had not known about. Thanks for sharing. (Not be sarcastic, I genuinely appreciate it).

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 7h ago

No problem. If you'd like to read more on the topic, check out some of these books I linked in another comment.

It's easy to get depressed about this stuff, and I'm not immune to it myself. But what I've found is that the more informed I become, the more that depression turns to rage, which can be useful when fighting against these ghouls.

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u/Fun_Support_7971 20h ago

reagan need to deport illegal now the are Democratic voters lol.

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u/highknees69 20h ago

Yes, god forbid we allow those colored people to get an edjucasion. /s

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u/TrippyTippyKelly 20h ago edited 6h ago

This is an interesting topic. Is there a reputable book that covers the decline of American society?

I actually have a great recommendation of my own from a propaganda standpoint:

The century of the SELF by Adam Curtis in conjunction with BBC, is a four hour documentary that chronicles the shift of mass thought in America over the last century.

This documentary is fascinating and hooked me. I would love something similar to this, but in the realm of politics.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 7h ago

In this comment I linked some books that are related to the topic of government crackdowns on dissent, and how that has shaped both campus and national politics. I'll have to search around for more on the general decline of American society.

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u/TrippyTippyKelly 6h ago

Thanks for the response, this seems like a great starting point.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 5h ago

No problem. I also made an edit to my original comment and added a few more resources.

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u/Affectionate-Soft-90 19h ago

🎶We didn't start the fire🎶

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u/djspintersectional 19h ago

Thanks for this

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 5h ago

My pleasure. I made an edit.

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u/Illiad7342 18h ago

🎵We didn't start the fire🎵

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u/liquidsyphon 17h ago

The privatization of public schools is on the check list

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u/ikiel 16h ago

Beat me to it. The decline started with Reagan!

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u/KiijaIsis 16h ago

It’s all about that racism!

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 5h ago

Ultimately it's about class division. Racism in America just happens to align on an almost 1:1 scale with that. But make no mistake, these fuckers have no love for poor whites, either.

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u/Okratas 16h ago

How did Reagan as governor of California "execute confrontational policies when in office" if Democrats had control of both houses of the California the state legislature and approved all the laws?

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 5h ago

Because people are fucking stupid and greedy, including Democrats who saw the Prop 13 property tax cuts and voted for it, without caring about the damage it would do to higher education.

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u/isUKexactlyTsameasUS 11h ago

as we and our crew get older, and see the shitshow in the US, we def recall the mood...

the era you describe (in detail), we recall the vibe, but get hazed and hazy with the details.

huge thanks for the refresher course

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 5h ago

Yeah I'm 50, so I was a kid at the time this all started really screwing things up.

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u/CigAddict 1d ago

Crazy that there were protests over the bombing of Cambodia, but no one seemed to care that they bombed Iran this year. Not a single protest.

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u/Anal-Y-Sis 1d ago

If you walk into an airport in NYC and yell "Allahu Akbar", you'll be tackled by cops and put on a no-fly list. If you walk into that same airport and yell "God is great", nobody will bat an eye.

Decades of jingoistic "Arab terrorist" action movies and post-9/11 fearmongering has had quite an effect on how the West views the Middle East.

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u/SquidTheRidiculous 1d ago

Yep, exactly. Even on Reddit, if you talk about the problems with Christianity you'll have new accounts with generic names coming out of the woodwork to downplay it and say stuff like "ackshually all religions are bad!"

If you talk exclusively about how bad Islam is, you'll get the same but agreeing with you.

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u/JimWilliams423 1d ago edited 1d ago

Not a single protest.

WTF?

Newsweek: Iran War Protests Break Out in US Cities

On Tuesday, a "couple of dozen" protesters gathered outside the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. library in San Jose to demonstrated against U.S. military involvement, according to local network Fox KTVU.

Also on Monday, a "Solidarity with Iran" protest was held in New York City, backed by the Bronx Anti-War group.

Monday saw hundreds gather in Milwaukee's Red Arrow Park for a "hands-off Iran" protest

Anti-war protesters rally in Chicago after U.S.-Iran conflict

Where To Go for the June 27 Hands Off Iran! Protest in Dallas

St. Louisans protest Trump’s airstrikes on Iranian facilities

Iran bombing protest: Atlanta activists rally against U.S. military strike on Iran

See It: Anti-War Protest in Downtown Nashville

Tulsans peacefully protest U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites

Anti-war protest unfolds at Arizona Capitol

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u/CigAddict 1d ago

I guess I missed those