How Fares Teh Revolution?

The Raiders and Reactionaries are sure throwing one titanic hissy fit over the Debt Ceiling "issue." The Rs have dug in their heels and asserted that there will be no lifting of the debt ceiling on their watch (ie: in the House), no sir, no way, not unless there are massive cuts in the 2012 budget -- approximately cutting a third of total expenditures, with no cuts to the military, in fact, increases to the military.

The only way to do that, of course, is to eliminate Federal programs, shut down agencies, bureaus and whole departments, and have a "Closing, Going Out of Business" sale. The Raiders and Reactionaries would actually require cuts in the neighborhood of 50% to 100% in domestic non-military spending.

THAT is Revolutionary. Even talking about it is wildly Revolutionary. The Markets are threatening dire consequences if there is a Default on Debt obligations, or even if there is consideration of defaulting. The Raiders and Reactionaries are saying there will be no default. But if they get their way, of course there will be a default on Treasuries, just not the ones that bond coupon clippers hold. The default, apparently long planned, is to be on the Social Security and Medicare Treasuries, thus forcing cuts in funding of those programs and forcing additional costs (with no additional income) onto seniors, the disabled and the poor.

Sounds like a plan, eh?

The Democrats, liberals and "progressives" simply wring their hankies and say, "Oh dear, no!" as one draconian Rightist Revolutionary proposal after another is enacted. "Oh dear, no!" is considered a brave and bold (and deeply Realistic) approach to the Revolutionary Demands of the Raiders and Reactionaries, the purpose of which is to preserve what can be preserved of the Status Quo while the Revolution reverts the nation's government to some kind of fantasy of what it was supposed to be had there been no Civil War.

Radical, reactionary, and Revolutionary, all wrapped up into one. And in the Modern World, it's a grossly anachronistic vision.

It's as if there were a revival of the Soviet Union under Stalin. The world has moved on, yet there are former Soviets who pine for the days of Stalin just as there are Americans who pine for the Antebellum Era when Everything Was Beautiful.

Except it wasn't, of course.

The key here is that the world has moved on, and the reversionaries, the reactionaries, the raiders and the (actual) Revolutionaries in our midst -- not from the Left -- don't want to move on because they can't keep up. They see the Past -- or at least their little version of it -- as a fine and permanent space to be in.

If they can only get rid of the devilish 'programs' that force us Forward, what a Paradise it would be! Except it wouldn't be any such thing.

Meanwhile, The Man in the Chair, Mister Brother Harold Camping, Loon, has declared the End of Time to occur tomorrow (well, actually, it begins today in New Zealand with earthquakes and rending the Earth asunder, just you wait).



So what's to worry?

"And shall we take Our Next Call Please, WELcome to Open Forum."

That's all for now!