No one, except one who profits from it, likes debt. But it is how money is invested in a myriad of public and private improvements (and sometimes things more destructive, such as wars). It is how we build or improve the commons. Not everyone supports the notion of the commons. And so those who do not mobilized to take it down, crash it, and sell it off. Likewise, these same nihilists aim to shipwreck any and every program which has as its focus to help real people, as opposed to artificial ones. This they plan to do by forcing a crisis brought on when the US runs out of money and must default because of those who would play with our futures so perilously.
Media tools of Peter Peterson’s “Americans for Prosperity,” pitch or replay Re-thugs uttering the analogy that the raising the debt is like household members spending more than they have in the bank. It isn’t. But that is the simplistic way it is pitched. It doesn’t help that our President admitted his earlier vote against raising the ceiling, a vote he regrets because now he knows better. But it is a vote which many will use as a justification for their own now. It is so easy to shrug off the dire ramification of the US defaulting on our debt payments, especially when the corporate media have persuaded 7 in 10 Americans that we should not raise the debt limit.
And so the GOP is playing an elaborate game of chicken, risking the good faith and credit of these United States, risking our economic solvency and throwing millions of seniors (to whom a large portion of this debt is owed because Bush and now Obama fund wars they cannot pay for with OUR Social Security trust fund) under the bus. Up until now, most representatives were not so foolish as to play politics with this issue. Now come our nemesis, the Blue Dogs, to conspire with the Re-thugs to crash our country’s economy; end social programs; and force many Americans into jobless poverty by forcing the all-at-once confrontation with deficit reduction. It is a fool’s bargain with the devil. That never stopped those who have a corporatist state at the forefront of their cognition. Enter Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Joe Manchin (D-W.VA) (we were glad he won why?) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark)
Joshua Holland cites Stan Collender’s list of ramifications for the effectiveness of duping the public (which I have summarized and modified):
–Regardless of the dangers to our nation’s and the world’s economies, legislators will find it easier to vote against raising the ceiling.
–This means many will vote against raising the ceiling before they vote for it.
–The resulting market instability in the aftermath, will empower more to vote for raising the ceiling on a subsequent vote, if any.
–But not until much damage has been done.
–Collander thinks Dems should just get the first vote over with. I disagree. Dems need to share with Americans just what is at stake here. And fast.
–Watch for Rethugs to push Dems around (again) and demand that henceforth a 2/3 vote would be needed for all budgetary and debt-related matters. That would assure nothing ever gets done, as California’s similar law has amply demonstrated.
The more the Re-thugs carry on, the more you see just how unAmerican they are. They are willing to risk forcing the US to crash and burn rather than to do the right thing. And the Conservadems, who assist them in their negligence and destructive behaviors, are no better. The more sane legislators on the other side, who are in increasingly small numbers, and enlightened Dems must take the time to constituents about what is at stake, before the Republicans and the Blue Dogs who love them bite the country that feeds them and which they are supposed to serve.
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