HOW SO FEW
CAN HARM SO MANY
Ruthless
recalcitrant Republicans bring our federal government to a halt.
What is
their endgame? They have none.
TAGS: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, REPUBLICAN SHUTDOWN,
USELESS CONGRESS, PARTISAN DIVIDE, “DEFUND” OBABACARE,
GOP DESPERATE MEASURES, THE WORLD IS WATCHING,
SHUTDOWN THREATENS NATIONAL SECURITY
(Monday October 7, 2013
Washington, DC) Oh how our Republican politicians in Congress, Governor’s
mansions, state legislations and town halls, love to boast and brag about
“American Exceptionalism”. They pound
their chests, rattle their sabers and demand respect from the rest of the
world, a world they seem to largely look down on with derision and
disgust. All those huddled masses of
black and brown people, Muslims, Hindus, Africans, Asians, Mexicans; Godless
pagans all; just looking for a hand out,
a leg up, a chance to poke the old US of A in the eye. What a
miserable lot our rock ribbed, red state Republicans are forced to share our
Country and world with. They can barely
tolerate the existence of the United Nations, NATO, international laws,
conventions, treaties and tariffs to say nothing about voters’ rights and
equality right here on our own front porches.
Yes indeed, why must these patriots even have to acknowledge the
mindless flocks of leftists, communists, socialists, fascists, tree hugging,
navel gazing, and bleeding heart liberals? No wonder they are so determined to
slash and burn their way towards obstructing every legislative measure they
deem unconstitutional. They toss such terms
around with little to no understanding of what they’re saying and they
certainly count on the American public to be equally lacking in understanding.
America has been exceptional
since she declared independence from the yoke of the United Kingdom in 1776. In so many ways this on-going experiment in a
constitutional Republic, a sovereign self-governing Democracy, has stood the
test of time through both good times and bad.
The values and rights that have made us exceptional made us the envy of
the world and a destination for so many seeking better lives, lives free of
oppression and struggle.
But now the world is puzzled
by America; they do not understand how a nation as great and powerful as ours
is can be driven to a partisan political impasse that has essentially shutdown
our federal government. Yes, some of the
parliamentary intricacies and procedural nuances are not even fully understood
by the majority of Americans (but that is a discussion for another time) much
less people in other countries. What the
world has come to admire and respect about America are all the fundamental
morals and virtues laid down by our Founders in The Bill of Rights and
Constitution and how they have served us well for over two centuries. However it would be ignorant, even arrogant,
to deny that America’s reputation has suffered in the eyes of the world over
the last 12 years. Sure, the self-righteous
Republicans don’t care how the wider world, other countries be them friend or
foe, look at us. Who cares, they
exclaim, what all those unwashed louts think about us? We emerged victorious
and prosperous as the lone “super power” once the Cold War died off. We have been a global force for good and
always beneficent as victors in every war we fought. Until recently, that is.
And here is where we begin to
glimpse the jagged edge of a growing dilemma.
We have seen our credibility and moral certitude rigorously tested after
our righteous military campaign drove the Taliban and Al Qeada from Afghanistan
in December 2001. The world observed as
a unilateral American approach as dictated by the Cheney / Bush Administration
was cast on the fly without a breath of reason or pause for appraisal. The world was shaken when that Administration
launched a completely pre-emptive war of choice in Iraq and had no plans for
what would happen once the Hussein regime was toppled. Even our “allies”, such as they were,
eventually awoke to the stark reality that Cheney and Bush had contrived a
cluster of falsehoods and lies and used deception and cherry picking of
intelligence to support their bogus claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to
the United States. The world’s
cohesiveness and order has been terribly stressed and strained by their
bastardized version of Pax Americana that came into existence in 2003. But, as the GOP will tell you, who really
cares? We are the big dog on the global
stage and you are either with us or against us.
Now we are demonstrating to
the world a side of our political personality that they may not have
appreciated before. They see our
Democracy stalled by a Gordian Knot of epic proportions, a knot that it took a
small number of our elected official in Congress to create. It is
becoming increasingly difficult to fly the flag of our exceptionalism while
petty partisan brinkmanship domestically is already causing a ripple effect
through the world’s economy. The world
looks at the stalemate in Washington DC, a Congress and President seemingly
having each other locked in some odd ideological headlock whereas ideology has
nothing to do with the Republican shutdown.
Even member of their own caucus become bumbling, bumbling idiots when
they are pressed to explain the purpose behind the shutdown.
Since early in the 1990’s our
economy, the largest in the world, has become ever more symbiotically linked to
a global economy that is so interconnected that the faintest cool breeze that
wafts through our Capitol and markets is felt the world over and in true
accordance with chaos theory, that simple breeze may trigger a tornado
somewhere around the world and the situation will escalate until there is a
full blown fiscal economic breakdown of immense proportions. The very real possibility of many countries
that were only recently recovering from economic woes will find themselves,
once again, facing market meltdowns and investors anarchy. Global trade and commerce are always tenuously
balanced and what the Republicans are doing to our economy and standing might
result in a global fiscal crisis. The
full faith and credit of the United States of America is at stake and the GOP
either is so steeped in their own blinding barrage of bullshit or they truly
are as crass and shallow as they appear.
Whatever it is their maneuvering has lit the fuse on a global economic
bomb that, if it is detonated, will create cracks and fissures that will devour
much of our domestic economy as well as a huge portion of the world’s would
slide rapidly into the abyss.
But that is not OUR problem,
so say the Republicans who see themselves as divinely inspired stalwarts
standing between our greatness and a chaotic messy world. Rather than actually legislate the
fundamentals of a functional government, they’d rather tie social issues, ones
that have long ago been adjudicated and declared constitutional, to every piece
of legislation that somehow manages to slither out of the House, a House of
Representatives that is nothing more than a den of corrupted vipers. They are
more focused and intent on disenfranchising voters, trying mightily to undo two
national elections by making efforts to delegitimize our twice elected
President, and otherwise be as obstructive and demagogic as they can be. They “play to their base” in all matters
large and small but in reality have much of their base bamboozled. They do not actually serve the bloc of voters
they embrace as their base; they prey off ignorance and fears, false threats and
the phony agendas of “others”, you know, like the Blacks and Hispanics, and
basically anyone who is not a White male over 32 years old.
We live in interesting times;
we, as a nation and society have lumbered into an America so vastly different
than it was just 30 years ago that the concepts we were taught in civics
classes in the 1960’s seem archaic and moribund; without relevance to this day,
this time. That is more than a shame. While change is inevitable, divorce from our
most closely held principles is not change worthy of our history.
Our governance and politics
are inexorably twinned. This twisted state
of affairs was distinctly not what our Founders envisioned when they crafted
our tripartite Republic. They wisely
installed a system of checks and balances into our governing and never could
have foreseen just how divisive and damaging their masterful creation could devolve
into a blueprint for gridlock. But, of
course, they never could have imagined the quality of Congress members we have
today. Long gone are the statesman and
compromisers; it has been many years since we’ve seen any sincerity in our
Congress or any hint of bipartisan desires aimed towards a greater good. We the people have become mere spectators,
even hostages in a way, to a hideous side show of geeks and freaks protected by
incumbency and bought by special interests to further the good of the
influential and select.
The main battle cry for the
GOP as reason de jour to shut down the government is their ridiculous desire to
defund “Obamacare”, their derisive label for the Affordable Care Act which was
passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President Obama in
2009. It has since weathered legal
challenges all the way to the United States Supreme Court and has emerged as a
constitutional law of the land. The
American public twice had the opportunity to votes against it by casting their presidential
votes for Barack Obama’s opponents, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in
2012. They did not; by virtual
landslides they did not. Their votes are
the expressed will of the people and it is beyond comprehension why Republicans
have chosen tactics and strategies doomed to fail. Their war against all they see as crafted by
the evil design of an un-American President is doomed to fail yet they draw on
seemingly endless reserves of idiocy, craven self-interest, and a host of despicable
blowhards spouting outright lies and truly doing criminal disservice to their
constituents and the country as a whole.
Yes, how the world is mocking us now.
As long as this government
shutdown drags on our national security will suffer and that alone is why this
state of affairs is not only potentially increasing the possibilities of a
terrorist event but daily eroding our stature in the eyes of those nations
seeking to do us harm. Furthermore,
since so much of our economy is intimately linked to nations that do not always
act in our favor, they may emerge as time goes on as having a greater amount of
leverage in such vital relationships like trade, commerce and fiscal
policy. A quick scan of headlines from
around the world clearly demonstrates that to friend and foe alike this current
state of shutdown leaves us vulnerable and easy prey to the economic whims and
commercial intentions of some of our biggest trading partners such as
China. Since so much of our national
debt is held by countries like China and Saudi Arabia there may come a time
when they begin to flex their economic muscles to bend trade and international monetary
policy in their favor. These are not
merely remote threats, they are very real possibilities. The world will not sit idly by while the
larges economic engine on the planet is literally in the grasp of a handful of
Republican megalomaniacs, extremists, hate-mongers, and delusional pirates
holding our ship of state under a black flag. AS more and more services are cut
and federal employees in the FBI, CIA, NSA and all other agencies are
furloughed home to wait out this malignant charade, terrorist, know to exploit
even the slightest crack in security will have greater opportunities to slip
through the slimmest of creases and deliver their brand of retribution to us.
As disgraceful as it is to
realize the eyes of the world are looking down on our dysfunctional government
and lack of unity, direction and purpose, it is even more sobering to know who
else is out there smelling the faintest whiff of weakness. The Republicans are doing the work of
terrorist from inside the system; their irresponsible shutdown increases the threat
level a bit more with each passing day.
Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2013 © All Rights Reserved
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