Olds would establish ‘social responsibility’ in place of the profit motive. That is conclusive proof that he does not believe in our form of government. Hugh Roy Cullen, in a letter to then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, trying to get Johnson to not reconfirm Leland Olds as head of the Rural Electrification Administration.
I’ve just started listening to All the Wrong Moves by Anthony Scaramucci. If the name sounds familiar but you can’t place it, he was the White House Communications Director for ten days, from July 21, 2017, to July 31, 2017. At the time, he was painted by most of the press as a sort of duffus. Maybe that’s why he got fired, but from his podcast with Katty Kay, Special US correspondent for the BBC, he doesn’t seem like a good fit with Trump; he seems a little too goody-two-shoes to be an insider in the Trump crowd.
Although, as an aside, before that official role, he did work on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, joining the Trump Finance Committee and later serving on the Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee after the 2016 election. End aside.
In All the Wrong Moves– subtitled How Three Catastrophic Decisions and Years of Shitshow Politics Lead To Trump. And How We Find A Way Out – Scaramucci puts forth the case that the United States was founded on making money and that this is our national religion. So far, about twenty percent into the book, he makes an excellent case. Of course, he wasn’t the first observer of American values to say that. Alexis de Tocqueville pretty much said the same thing in 1830 when he wrote, I know of no country, indeed, where the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men… And, from the quote at the top of this post, I would say that Hugh Roy Cullen agrees, too. Still, I’ve never looked at our history that way, and it is sort of shocking and a little disturbing.
I would slightly broaden the defining American character to say improvement of one’s circumstances. Money might be it for some, but just plain survival drove many immigrants. It’s why my Irish grandparents left Ireland and the Norwegian ones left Norway.
Hi Linda, that is pretty much the same story I heard from my Grandparents and pretty much what I was taught in my history classes, and I’m sure it is true in a great number of cases. Still, Scaramucci makes a good case (so far).
I feel that so much about the origin and development of our country is both shocking and disturbing. From the Puritan founding to wholesale slaughter of the American Indians/Indigenous people to slavery and to mega churches. My list could go on….