Charlie Pierce at Esquire Magazine takes a couple of other journalists to task for their views that perhaps it might be a good idea to appease the temper tantrum throwing Teahadist radicals in Congress and let them proceed with their most bestest plan of shutting down the government and defaulting on the U.S. government's credit by refusing to raise the debt ceiling because they can't have their way:
Todd Purdum takes to the pixels of Tiger Beat On The Potomac to make this case. Ezra Klein also seems to be aboard, too. These are both pretty smart guys, so why they've decided to believe this nonsense ees-a-puzzlement to me. Let us get the goopy humanity stuff out of the way first. Both a government shutdown and/or a debt-ceiling catastrophe will have savage real-world consequences for millions of people who do not live in Washington and who do not appear on panel shows, and who already are making due with the cuts that came from sequestration, the previous attempt to shame the inhabitants of the monkeyhouse into a return to sanity. How's that working out for everyone? Now, granted, the stakes are immeasurably higher, but what leads anyone to believe that even being blamed for inflicting incalculable pain on millions of people is going to result in the kind of national revulsion that will cause the Republicans to come back to the pack?http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/government-shutdown-not-a-good-idea-092713
Frankly, The Gadfly has to say that he is, albeit reluctantly, on board with the idea of letting the GOP shoot the hostage (the government and the U.S. economy) in the head. For one thing - it is the only hostage they have. Once they shoot that hostage, they no longer have anything to leverage their position from. Secondly, the American people aren't going to blame the deceased hostage with the bloody bullet hole in his head for the consequences that will follow - they're going to lay the vast majority of the blame squarely at the feet of the corporate owned GOP and their rabies infected attack dog - the Tea Party.
Sure - Pierce is correct in stating that the government shutdown and default on the debt "will have savage real-world consequences for millions of people" and The Gadfly acknowledges that is not a lighthearted prospect to ponder.
However, as The Gadfly noted in a previous post, "there comes a point when you realize that extraordinary circumstances, while envisaging the gravest of consequences if no action is taken at all, must be addressed with purposeful and extraordinary undertaking."
To put it bluntly, The Gadfly is convinced at this point that the only thing that will prod the American people out of their mass-media, consumer culture induced stupor, and open their eyes to the life affecting mischief that these foolish, radical Tea Party lunatics are engaging in, is some form of severe and extended economic pain.
And make no bones about it -- this pain will transverse the entire spectrum of economic class in the country. For if America defaults on it's debt, you dear readers are going to see a world-wide convulsive effect that will, in essence, blow the American economic ship/juggernaut right out of the proverbial fucking water. And when that happens, the stock market will implode, great swaths of wealth will be obliterated across America, a depression ensues and not only are Joe and Jane Middle-Class going to be royally fucked for years, maybe decades to come, but so will be the majority of institutional Wall Street investors - the monetary lifeblood of the market.
And should that scenario come to pass dear readers, The Gadfly does not consider it a far stretch of the imagination to believe that the Koch Brothers and their ilk will finally and ruefully get the class war that they have been agitating for with their greedy and oppressive economic policies and legislative manipulation and political meddling. Only The Gadfly does not think that the outcome of that war will be as favorable to the Kochs and their industrialist pals as they might believe -- and The Gadfly makes that observation with the historical recollection of Benito Mussolini's demise on his mind.
Soon we shall see how this life and death Kabuki dance will be played out. The Gadfly is not convinced that the oblivious Teahadists possess the cognitive thinking abilities required for them to reflect inward on their behavior and so the odds are firmly in favor of them going forward with their murder-suicide plan for the country. The Gadfly would like to believe his analysis is just dead wrong and that these selfish, immature, and destructive people will come to their senses and sufficiently reform themselves and get back to work at compromising with their political rivals enough to move the country forward and do the best by the most American people. But sadly, the evidence just simply does not exist to support that Utopian scenario and thus are the grounds for The Gadfly's resigned pessimism.
And so here we are.
Pass the popcorn.
----TFG
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