( – promoted by lowkell)
A number of the most extreme, most obstructionist, most destructive Republicans are planning to try to repeat their atrocious behavior from 2011, abusing the need to raise the debt ceiling in order to extort concessions from the President — particularly their demand that Obamacare be defunded.
President Obama badly misplayed that debt ceiling crisis back in 2011, but apparently learned from that mistake. He’s declared that there will be no negotiation over the debt ceiling.
This approaching showdown creates an opportunity that could be seized by a movement with the ability to put people into the streets and the goal of taking power away from the destructive force that’s arisen on the political right and taken over the Republican Party.
It would rally people to demonstrate — in Washington, and in major media areas around the country — around the theme: “Tell President Obama to Stand Fast on the Debt Ceiling, and Not Give an Inch to Republican Blackmailers”
This could help accomplish two tasks important for winning the central battle of our times, which is to take power away from this force on the right that’s so systematically damaging our nation.
1) It would strengthen the president’s resolve (and his position in being resolved). This is important because, as disappointing as President Obama has been at fighting that battle, the president is by necessity our champion in the fight, the one in far and away the best position to fight it, and Barack Obama is the only president we’re going to have until 2017.
2) It would call attention to the scandalous nature of what the Republicans are doing, which is important because the more the agents of this destructive force are discredited in the eyes of the electorate, the more the people will drain away their power.
Calling attention to this Republican blackmail will discredit them because:
1) It would show them to be the very opposite of patriots. They show themselves to be blackmailers, holding a gun to the head of the country and saying, “Meet my demands or we’ll hurt America.” No real patriot would ever make that kind of threat.
2) It would show them to be the opposite of conservative, as they trample on our American traditions on how to deal with the debt ceiling. These are traditions established by previous generations of leaders of both parties because they understood that maintaining the full faith and credit of the United States was too important to play politics with.
3) It shows them to be the enemies of our democracy. Their refusal to accept the legitimacy of a law — the Affordable Care Act (a law, incidentally, that’s really quite mainstream, however imperfect, with nothing extreme or reckless or inconsistent with reasonable American values about it)– duly passed by Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, demonstrates a contempt for the system our founders gave us.
The public should be able to see, this is not the kind of spirit that should be entrusted with a say over our national destiny.
Is there anyone able and willing to get such a campaign to organized and moving quickly?
Are there people out there with the talent, time, connections, and motivation to use demonstrations and media coverage to help get “Stand Firm on the Debt Ceiling, Mr. President” to become part of the national conversation, thereby helping to buck up Obama and put the Republican blackmailers in the spotlight?
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