No Marxist me, but he was no slouch intellectually, and described it as “praxis,” putting theory into action.

We ain’t got no praxis, folks.

We have grown complacent, decadent, as the empire has decayed.

How sadly true.

The hard work, grassroots organizing of folks who came before us, gave us so much from the CCC projects to the expansion of the park system. We have grown complacent, decadent, as the empire has decayed.

Like the right wingers have bred themselves for stupidity, we’ve allowed ourselves to lose any connection with the skillset needed to bring a winning coalition to the table and hold elected officials accountable.

FDR and Harold Ickes come across as real heroes– they make our present day Democrats look like a bunch of wimps.

They are a bunch of wimps. Mostly. Some are good occasionally, some are good most of the time, but too many of them have all the guts of a flatworm.

They won’t. The difference is, Hanson came to see that he was wrong, while the current crop of corporate cocksuckers already know they’re wrong but aren’t willing to give the money back and admit it.

The segment on the Civilian Conservation Corps touched me deeply as I’m certain it did the many whose fathers and grandfathers participated in that program and FDR’s other alphabet soup Depression public relief programs. Where is our CCC or WPA? The need is there both in terms of people and projects.

I was unfamiliar with several of the issues. Hetch Hetchy, for example. As Burns made clear in the very first example of Yosemite, these areas could be protected because they had no perceived monetary value. I found this essay which expands on that theme.

George Wuerthner’s On the Range

The problem has been, and still is, that those in power have not permitted these kinds of places to gain protection. The preponderance of glaciated peaks in our early Park system was a consequence of political realities. Our parks and wildernesses were mountaintops, because that was the only places left undeveloped, and without powerful economic foes interested in keeping the land open for exploitation. It was the only thing that had “no use”. And “no use” was often the major reason for designation–and indeed the only argument that had any weight with Congress.

To return to the health care parallel, we will not win until we can demonstrate that WE have more economic value than corporate interests. Can that happen through the democratic process or will it require means more drastic?

I, too, was surprised at the Burns’ very clear political message. The party of NO has a long and ignoble history. Did any of them watch? Did any of them comprehend?

To add one political item, I wouldn’t get too carried away with lauding the Republicans of the day – Teddy was the most hated Republican in New York State because of his progressive stances. He “inherited” the Presidency after New York Republicans schemed to get him out of their hair and run as Vice-President.

I merely add environmentalism to the list of things that make America great opposed every step of the way by rapacious, greedy Republicans.

I was brought to tears more than once by his masterful storytelling, and the political message was delivered subtly, but firmly throughout.

The thing I noticed was how familiar the arguments against the parks were, and how they came from the usual suspects.

Those who oppose conservation and other public good projects lack, as George H W Bush so delicately put it, “that vision thing”.

If there was ever an idea that needs revival, it’s that of the commonwealth.