So the Government Shut Down and the Coming Debt Default Were Planned In January

Interesting.

At least according to Chait in New York Magazine, this series of crises was plotted out by Republican strategists shortly after the 2012 election in which they failed to remove the President and replace him with their own simulacrum of Imperial Majesty. 

This might help to explain why the Syria Thing didn't get off the ground; the Rs couldn't pull a stunt like shutting down the government or defaulting on the debt if the Nation was embroiled in yet another war in the Middle East. At least you would think they couldn't, but stranger things have happened...

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy...

"The Williamsburg Accord," eh?

Well, why not. Makes a kind of warped and perfect sense, and what it tells us is that literally nothing of politics in this country is as it seems because nothing is moored to reality. It's all a show, a game show in a sense, in which Our Rulers posture and roar for entertainment purposes, but which is operating according to a plot and a plan laid out well in advance, according to a "script" if you will, that we -- the onlookers, the audience, the Rabble -- have no effect on at all.

Of course, the Show has an effect on us as it is meant to. This is a government of taking, and we're finding out more and more every day what is being taken, by whom, and how. But we are -- of course -- powerless to do anything about it. That's the whole point. The people we are allowed to choose from at election time all share the same theories of government. They will instinctively follow the same script.

For what it is worth, the "Williamsburg Accord" along with all the other plots and plans we've been subject to lo these many years come out of Republican strategy shops; there is no functional equivalent among the Democrats, and the idea of a Democratic Strategist is an oxymoron anyway. The party functions -- when it functions -- as a foil to the Rs who are in actual control of the government at all times. Even when -- or especially when -- they are crazy-seeming like now.

If Chait knew about the plot and the plan that the Rs came up with in January, then everybody who matters knew, too, yet it is the convention in politics and the media to play dumb while playing along with the script. As if everything that happens is somehow spontaneous, driven solely by the Public Interest. Or something.

To be clear, the Dems knew this was the Plan, too. So did the media. It has not been a secret among those who matter. It has been well publicized for their benefit. But the public, the Rabble, has been left out of the knowledge equation as always. They only see the results of the latest gambit, not how we got here, and they rarely if ever realize that the whole government/propaganda structure is in on the game.

Once again there will be the appearance of a protracted struggle over "principle" or what have you, and once again, because the protagonists are in on it together, they will get what they want -- and what's been planned -- bugger the rest of us.

Sigh.

No, it was not ever thus. But this is how governance has devolved in this country. As some wags have pointed out, the end game is nigh, and it will probably result in the irrelevance of Congress and the institutionalization of a straight-out Imperial (Fascist) Dictatorship. Lucky us.

Diplomacy Will Out? Let's Not Get Ahead of Ourselves Just Yet

The story being retailed is that Russia and the United States have come to a diplomatic agreement to take care of that little chemical weapons problem in Syria within the next year or so, and this is being hailed far and wide as an example of diplomatic skill almost unparalleled in the modern world, as -- for once in our miserable lives -- war has been averted.

Well. That's good. The less war the better for most of us, and the ideal would be no war at-all, at-all. But of course the Syrian civil war shall continue without let up, much as all kinds of resistance actions and civil wars continue regardless of diplomacy, sometimes for decades or generations, and eventually whatever is left of Syria will be ground into powder by the Israelis, yes?

This is all for Israel's benefit, is it not?

We don't know that. Israel is part of the Problem of the Middle East and is constantly agitating the Arabs to do dirt to one another so as to ensure they are too debilitated to do dirt to the Israelis. It's a form of "diplomacy" I doubt most of us would want to talk about, but it has been going on for thousands of years and it's sometimes successful in preventing a wider struggle from breaking out, or in ensuring that certain interests stay above the fray while the Lesser Ones fight among themselves.

What has happened with Syria is that something along those lines has been worked out on behalf of the "parental units" -- ie: Russia and the United States -- and the Crazy Uncle (Israel) as well. The Syrians will keep fighting among themselves till Doomsday, with active support and armaments from the Powers, but supposedly without the wherewithal to deploy WMD. Only Israel in the region will have that particular grim agency.

I thought it was interesting that Assad said in his interview with Charlie Rose that until Israel disposed of its WMD arsenal, Syria could not agree to do any such thing itself -- while not admitting that there was a Syrian arsenal. Israel is the Problem, after all. And until Israel complies...

But Israel won't comply, and as a client (?) state of the United States, the United States has no interest in compelling compliance.

Assad then agrees to the Russian framework for removing chemical weapons from Syria (in due time), which the United States then agrees to. Success! Or something.

Of course, there are those who will insist till their dying day that all this was nothing more than a kabuki distraction from the Real Story of NSA Surveillance of Americans and the Whole Wide World.  Well, yes, I suppose it is in some sense, though the NSA Story was evaporating on its own, as there were no plans to scale back the Surveillance/Police State despite the complaints. But everything is Kabuki eventually, everything is a distraction from everything else. And it's all a show. What's taking place backstage and behind the scenes creates the "show" we are so fascinated by -- whatever show it is at any given time.

We are not well equipped to observe and appreciate more than one show at a time, it seems.

I was certain that there was Something Big coming After Labor Day, and I was right. It was Syria, yes, but -- apparently -- not in the context of another Anglo-American Imperial War of Aggression. So in that sense, I was wrong, in that I thought we'd see more bloodshed led by American military might. It could still happen, of course, but the likelihood of it is relatively slim.

The punditocracy is furious, of course, because they didn't know in advance what was going to happen. They were as bindsided as anybody else, and they don't like being in that position. They're better than the Rabble, aren't they? Aren't they?

The pundits insist the Real Issue is whacking Iran, the sooner the better, but as we've seen, the whackage planned for Iran never seems to happen. Doesn't mean it won't, but the likelihood diminishes year by year. Or so it seems.

Meanwhile, the Rabble keeps paying for all the miscalculations and destructive policy decisions coming out of Washington and Wall Street.

Republicans All The Way Down

Shipoopi-Kabuki

The Dreaded Sequester is now upon us. Apparently. Well, given the Kabuki that is Washington Theater, we never really know whether anything is ever an actual yay or nay -- or even whether it matters -- in that otherworldly realm. They will do what they want and when they want to screw the rest of us, and if that screwage is most effectively accomplished through Sequestration, then so be it.

Now of course in Washington Theater, everything is always the result of Republicans doing something nasty to the Democrats -- who are always, of course, being entirely reasonable and completely powerless.

This has been going on for decades now. The actors and the victors are always the diminishing handful of Republicans -- such as Dame Mitch McConnell, or everyone's least favorite Munster-cousin Paul Ryan. The hapless Dems just take it, whatever "it" may be at the moment, and then when they are not being hapless, they're totally feckless. When their fecklessness fails, they are simply craven.

It is now Iron Law. It was not ever thus, nor need it be thus, but it is thus, and for whatever reason,  the plot cannot be changed. Republicans are the actors in our play. Dems react. If they aren't simply cowering in the corner.

The notion of cutting the federal budget during a now essentially permanent recession seems slightly, somewhat, just a teense counter intuitive, especially given that it is relatively obvious -- even to Republicans and the media who serve them -- that continuing reductions in government workforces are a major drag on economic recovery. Republicans make clear they understand this full well when they scream and fuss about all the military budget cuts and all the military contractors who will be forced to cut back their work-forces because of the Dreaded Sequester. They know full well that their rhetoric about the Government Never Creating A Job is bullshit, but they figure that the Dems are too feckless and craven to counter these lies effectively, and they're too hapless to point out the glaring hypocrisy of paying for endless military spending (on top of the bloated Imperial Domestic Security State)  on the basis of "jobs, jobs, jobs!"

Yeah, well.

This performance on the Washington Stage is being brought to us by a unified company. It includes both parties in Congress and the White House, acting in concert to accomplish certain mutually agreeable ends. Those ends include the fleecing and screwage of the rest of us.

The concept that it is all the Republicans' fault -- or all the Democrats', or Nino Scalia's -- fault is kind of essential myth making and propaganda, intended to maintain division among the Lower Orders. That division is essential for continuing control of said Orders, and that control is necessary for the continued unmolested fleecing and screwage -- which is all Our Betters think the rest of us deserve anyway.

The Dreaded Sequester does little in the context of the overall budget -- because it is such a tiny percentage of overall spending. But because of its focus on bang for the buck, so to speak, the harm caused to ordinary people will be significant -- intentionally. The harm to the poorest among us will be especially harsh, and few will pay much attention because that's the way budget cuts have been implemented for many years now.  But intentional harm to the collapsing middle class will be significant as well.

Obviously, Republicans don't have to worry about what happens to ordinary people in any case because they don't have "constituents" as the term is ordinarily understood. They have client who they serve -- as long as the price is right. Dems may have the same or different clients, but they lack "constituents" as well. The People matter not a whit to the Rulers.

It is so because even when the People become restive, they are still reluctant to do anything that Rulers believe they need pay any attention to. Nobody expects the Paris Commune, but it's well past time to demand something better out of the Washington image machine -- something beyond "it's Republicans all the way down!" (And oh how the "Left" loves to play that game!)

Interestingly, there is some nascent ferment on the Constitutional front, even going so far as to suggest replacing the antiquated, indeed fossilized and ignored, establishing document we have with something appropriate and new. The Voting Rights issue seems to be a trigger to the realization that the establishing document itself is deeply, terminally flawed (because there is no People's right to vote in the Constitution). Regardless of what you believe about the ideology of the Supreme Court majority, if they are going to rule based on what they believe the framers of the Constitution meant, and they will not allow any deviation, then perhaps -- just maybe -- it is time to abolish the whole rickety mess and start over.

Will wonders never cease.