This is apparently what The Powers That Be want us to endure next year: the Pauls, Father and Son, holding forth endlessly, and bringing the operations of the Government to a grinding halt while they propound about the Constitution As It's Supposed to Be (cf: the Confederate Constitution) and the Universe twirls around them, first around the one and then around the other.
I put the Son before the Father (sacrilege, I know) for the simple reason that he will be seated as a Senator from Kentucky, and as a Senator, individually, he will have essentially unlimited power to bring the body to a screeching halt. This is a power all Senators have, but only Republicans are allowed to exercise it according to the rules and ancient traditions of the body. The Father cannot single-handedly bring the House to a halt, but he will no doubt do his best, and likely will achieve his objective by strategy -- a strategy of burying the House in investigatory fervor, everything being "wrong" and all. Since 1787. So it all has to be "reviewed."
Why The Powers That Be would want this is something of a Mystery, but clearly they do, and no doubt while the Government is completely paralyzed, they will set in motion their Final Solution. The outlines have been obvious for years. They don't believe in Constitutional Self-Government and they want to replace it with something more like a "Directed Democracy" in which the constitutional forms of the past are retained in large part, but they are non-functional. Instead, Rule is achieved through and from what amounts to the Throne, which is not so much an independent executive as it is the agent of the Ruling Faction of Private Interest. The People, essentially, have no say in the matter, nor are they even expected to know what's going on. The Government is to exist as the enforcement arm of the Ruling Faction of Private Interest, nothing more. The heady days of "self-government" will be well and truly over.
A dictatorship? Well, it could be, especially if the Pauls, Father and Son, are able to completely paralyze the functioning of Government. There will have to be a sharp -- and quite possibly final -- intervention from... somewhere... which will have the effect of irrelevating Congress altogether. If Obama can't engineer it and implement it appropriately, I have little doubt he will be replaced, and not with Joe Biden. The most likely replacement would be General St. David Petraeus who would step in as a kind of Interim Protector, the Presidency and Vice Presidency being temporarily vacant.
That role could easily become permanent.
It's already quite clear that internal factional disputes within the Ruling Class have reached critical mass. There will be a fierce and potentially violent struggle between factions for ultimate control, a struggle that will make the internal factional disputes of the Clintonian Interregnum seem almost quaint. How it will resolve is difficult to tell. But whatever the result, the New America that emerges will look little like what we once knew, its path will be set in a different direction, and just like today, many around the world will follow.
Whatever the case, it is not our struggle.
[Note: I am recovering from pneumonia. I refused hospitalization -- for the simple reason that the last time I was hospitalized I was nearly killed (twice) through medical error and neglect. Recovery will be long and slow at home, but it wouldn't have been any faster in the hospital...]
wow, Ché, take care of yourself. Which I guess you are, with your actively refusing hospitalization. You must know what is best for you, then. Pneumonia is nothing to mess with, though, as you must know. Ugh. Bacterial? So, able to treat with antibiotics? My Mom and one of my brothers had pneumonia and it took a long time, months, for full strength to return. Have you had a pneumonia vaccination?
ReplyDeleteSay, apropos of nothing here, is there a way for you to make your music side-bar, La Musica, user-enabled instead of automatic play when loading your site? This has become a problem for me since my browser crashes at least once a day (no matter it be Safari or Firefox—they all seem to do it!). So when I restart and restore the history, arrrggghhhhhhhhh, the music blasts away! And I have to scramble to get to your window. Thanks. And take care.
Hey lea-p,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words.
Re: pneumonia. I had it once before, some 25 years ago, and I was hospitalized. Not knowing what I was about to endure -- and barely survive -- I agreed to a course of treatment in the hospital, thinking "What could it hurt?" Ha!
Medical error and neglect -- compounded with sleep deprivation -- became routine. I was given the wrong medication through a saline drip line that I'd been connected to since arrival to combat dehydration. That little mistake nearly caused my heart to stop. It took days to correct the situation.
Then I went into anaphylactic shock in response to the dye used for CAT scans. Though I warned the operators of my allergies beforehand and I vocalized my distress as it was building, the operators essentially paid no attention until I had fallen on the floor in a stupor and had stopped breathing. Even then, it took some time for them to notice.
They did revive me. So there was that. It was a remarkable experience, to say the least. But after that experience, I just wanted out. I was discharged after 11 days without a wink of sleep, given the constant noise level on the floor.
Full recovery took about six months at home. During which time, we had to move because the house we were renting was sold out from under us. Joy!
So. When I suspected what was wrong this time (similar symptoms and all), I had to weigh the risk-benefits of hospitalization. I saw no benefit to being in the hospital and said so. It's a milder case, thank goodness, and antibiotics actually seem to be working well. Without the additional stress of constant noise, routine medical screw-ups, and not knowing what's "next," recovery, though slow, seems faster.
I'm figuring about 3 months this time. Yay!
Oh and as for La Musica, I'm headed over to Playlist now to disable the player. I fully understand your frustration with "auto-play" -- I face it too!
Hope your holidays have been a joy!