July 19, 2011

Unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, and suicide rates are on the rise. Obsessing about the debt ceiling at a time like this is a lethal fraud. Naomi Klein said this about the debt ceiling charade being performed in Washington: “Using trumped up crisis to raid the public purse and attack the basic rights and benefits is a very old trick - but rarely is the shock doctrine tactic wielded as brazenly as in the pseudo debate about the debt ceiling. This is naked class war, waged by the ultra rich against everyone else, and it's well past time for Americans to draw the line.” The phony debt ceiling crisis is just one more excuse to further shred our already puny social safety net and increase wealth concentration at the top. But more to the point, I thought it was American policy not to negotiate with terrorists. The Republican tactic in Minnesota and Washington, D.C. is the same: do what we want or we’ll blow up the government. And, as we saw in Minnesota, they did just that. Unfortunately, governor Dayton did a Neville Chamberlin and let them get away with it. Appeasement is not the answer with these Republican Nazis just as it was not the answer in 1938. It’s just going to get worse. We are not amused.