Republicans Burning Down The House

This of course is dedicated to the pyromaniacs currently manning that fire station known as the U.S. House of Representatives. Watching last weeks events with what can only be described as something like morbid fascination I decided to assemble a few of what I thought were some of the more pithy comments out there:

From Matt Taibbi:

"So the debt deal has finally been reached. As expected, the agreement arrives in a form that right-thinking people everywhere can feel terrible about with great confidence.

The general consensus is that for the second time in three years, a gang of financial terrorists has successfully extorted the congress and the White House, threatening to blow up the planet if they didn't get what they wanted.

Back in 2008, the congress and George Bush rewarded Hank Paulson and Wall Street for pulling the Cleavon-Little-"the-next-man-makes-a-move-the-n---er-gets-it" routine by tossing trillions of bailout dollars at the same people who had wrecked the economy.

Now, Barack Obama has surrendered control of the budget to the Tea Party, whose operatives in congress used the same suicide-bomber tactic, threatening a catastrophic default unless the Democrats committed to a regime of steep spending cuts without any tax increases on the wealthy."

Paul Krugman:

"Make no mistake about it, what we’re witnessing here is a catastrophe on multiple levels.

It is, of course, a political catastrophe for Democrats, who just a few weeks ago seemed to have Republicans on the run over their plan to dismantle Medicare; now Mr. Obama has thrown all that away. And the damage isn’t over: there will be more choke points where Republicans can threaten to create a crisis unless the president surrenders, and they can now act with the confident expectation that he will.

In the long run, however, Democrats won’t be the only losers. What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question. After all, how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t."

And Dave Cohen at Decline of The Empire with what I thought was one of best blog titles "Dying Government Fails To Commit Suicide, Will Try Again Later":

"A self-inflicted disaster. The government held a gun to its head and threatened to kill itself (video below). Fortunately—or unfortunately, I can't decide which—the government didn't pull the trigger.

Guess what? There is no "plan" in any time frame which will address both the long-term fiscal gap without weighing heavily on a weak recovery economy. This "plan" doesn't exist! Can't possibly exist!

As I've told you over and over again, it took 30 years to get here. That's why the politicians basically did nothing, for there is nothing they can do so without 1) screwing the special interests who actually elected them or 2) screwing the low- and middle-income people who voted for them. That's why every citizen with an interest in the matter—outside the politicians who negotiated it—is unhappy with the deal. That's why the government is feeling suicidal lately. Forget about the politics, those are mere details. Think about it. It's not clear which is worse: raising the debt ceiling or not raising the debt ceiling. Few Americans can wrap their heads around this. Prepare yourself for a lot of future unhappiness."

Our political system has now devolved to a point where it is totally unresponsive to the needs of the majority of the citizens. On a national level we are confronted with the choice of the ongoing criminal enterprise known as the the republican party versus a national democratic party with no apparent principles worth actually fighting for or identifiable values. My only consolation in the midst of this dermocracy, (taken from the Russian, dermo or shit), is living in Wisconsin where a sizable portion of the populace has awakened and will hopefully begin the laborious process of freeing itself. On to the recalls.