Measuring curtains for the captains quarters

Essayist Terrence Heath compares the current debt ceiling battle to the Titanic on which the GOP as eager First Mate rams the ship into an iceberg so that when the captain goes down with the ship they can take over. They either don't remember or care that if the ship goes down they go down too. Pulling away from the analogy a bit, if the GOP succeeds in grabbing the reins of government the country may be so chaotic as to be ungovernable.

So, if the Prez. is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, why is the GOP measuring for curtains in the captain's quarters? When did the GOP go crazy?

Perhaps one of the first signs was back in 2002 when an unnamed Bush admin. official dismissed his opponents on the grounds they were "reality based." The explanation was that phrase meant "people who believe solutions emerge from study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world works anymore. We’re an empire, and when we act, we create our own reality." Pull that idea into the present day it means the Right wants to believe its desires can reshape financial markets to avoid problems with a default, simply because it says so.

I wrote a while back about a comment by Michael Moore that the GOP is holding the economy hostage. This appears to be another incident of that -- give us what we want, now, or we blow the whole thing up. And if people suffer, well, they deserve to.

So why is the GOP doing it? Why are they even proposing constitutional amendments to require balanced budgets (and expect them to get through Congress in five days) as part of their solution? Why are they putting the gov't in a straightjacket?

Because they have the power now to do so. Their demographic is declining. They have little appeal with young voters and ethnic minorities whose percentage of the population is growing. The white elite at the party's base see themselves as the source of the nation's wealth and values. The poor and all those minorities want to steal all that wealth through taxes (conveniently forgetting the rich stole it from us) and want to lock in low tax rates while they can, and perhaps lock in their power while they can. Perhaps they know they can't keep the helm through elections and are willing to send the ship to the bottom if they can't.

This sounds like part of the recipe for fascism that Sara Robinson wrote almost two years ago.

This essay by Heath and my mention of the Koch brothers yesterday got me to thinking. What does an ordinary citizen do about this? The GOP isn't listening to me. As the battle in Wisconsin showed last winter, the GOP isn't even listening to a capitol building full of protesters. The GOP is only listening to the Koch brothers and their colleagues.

And the Dems? They're not listening to me or the common people either. They're too busy caving to the GOP. Or the GOP had reduced them to spectators (as has happened in Michigan).

So what's a concerned citizen to do? I'm to the point where I simply want to turn off my radio when the debt ceiling discussion comes on the news and have turned it off when anyone is interviewing Bachmann or any GOP representative or senator. If something happens by Tuesday I'm sure I'll hear about it.

Another thought is that poem from the Nazi era (and please forgive me for dragging them into the debate) that I've discussed before under the topic of fascism. Here's the poem.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.
-- Martin Niemoeller

My feeling at the moment is what good would it do to say something? At the moment the GOP isn't listening. In the future it may be that if I say something they don't save me for last.

Back in June I caught part of the On Point program produced by NPR. It was a discussion with author Paul Gilding and his book The Great Disruption. The GOP's desire to trash the economy made me think of this and it took a while for me to remember which program I heard discussing it.

Gilding's core idea is that simply in terms of physics and biology, the earth can no longer support all of us. Global warming has begun. It's going to get nasty out there with the weather severely reducing food production. Somalia's famine is only the start.

But Gilding says once our backs are to the wall we as a species will respond to the crisis. We usually handle crises well (though usually wait until a situation becomes a crisis before we act). It is after that great disruption that humanity will reprioritize the way we live and society around the world will become much better. Alas, we'll have to go through hell to get there.

Back to why I'm including that reference now. Society is going to get rather nasty for a while, no matter what the GOP does. They may even get us to that crisis sooner, when we'll start acting responsibly. So why do something?

Yeah, I'm feeling grumpy about the whole mess just now. Please talk me out of it. Simply doing nothing doesn't sound very responsible.