Ideological Terrorism

What follows is a summary of comments made by Sally Kohn on the May 31, 2011, edition of "The Ed Show" with Thomas Roberts filling in [very well I might add] for Ed. Ms. Kohn is the founder of movementvision.org. The interview is not repeated verbatim, but it's close.

Ms. Kohn's remarks essentially pertain to the current Republican efforts to use the debt ceiling as leverage to try to force their mean spirited, medieval agenda on Democrats and the American people in general:

[A few observations by this blogger are internally bracketed.]

We’re at a new level of political threat. The Republicans are using the so called debt crisis for political theater. This time they are seriously threatening to ruin the future of the middle class. Let’s be very clear: This is ideological terrorism. They are threatening to blow up our nation’s economy and our future for the sake of some political point.

[Blogger’s Note: Yes, "some political point" all right. Like reducing taxes to the bare minimum for their rich and corporate campaign contributors, and the hell with everyone else].

This is a manufactured crisis that is being exploited by Republicans in order to cram down our throats a long held ideological agenda to kill government and everything that’s made America work for the middle class and the poor.

The truth at this moment is that businesses are sitting on record levels of capital that they’re not spending. Government is the spender of last resort. In the private sector, successful businesses have two times, three times, 14 times, sometimes 50 times, larger debt-to-income ratios than the government has. So why is it okay for them but not for us?

The so called deficit problem is merely a red herring that Republicans are trying to exploit. If they were serious about the deficit, 70% of their budget plan wouldn’t be going to more tax cuts for the rich. They would actually be lowering the deficit, which their plan doesn’t do.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan said, “Defaulting on the federal deficit would be unthinkable.” But that Republican Party was very different from the one we have now - the current Republican ideological terrorists are holding our government and our economy hostage.

[Blogger's Notes: This is hardly anything new. They forced the obscene 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthy down our throats last December by holding the extension of unemployment benefits hostage even though the consequence was that legions of people, who were unemployed through no fault of their own, faced the all too real prospect of becoming homeless and/or starving.
Yet the Republicans' only concern was protecting their mega-rich campaign donors from (gasp!) paying a few more dollars in taxes, money that wouldn't support most of them for two days.

Then they took us down to the wire again by threatening to shut down the entire government if Democrats didn't agree to a galaxy of immediate and substantial spending cuts.]

We will lose standing in the world if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Our future, our children’s future, our grand children’s future will not continue to go on. Moreover, if Republicans get their way and slash government by 3/4 as they are planning to do with discretionary spending, our kids will not have the life that Americans have come to know.

-End of Ms. Kohn's Remarks-

What follows is commentary by this blogger should anyone wish to read on:

The scenario that we are witnessing has an eerily familiar feel to it. Hypothetically, what invariably happens when a spoiled child asks for $5, and you give it to him even though he doesn't necessarily need (or deserve) it? Why, he asks for more, of course. So the next time you give him $10. Is that going to satisfy him? Not a chance. He's on a roll now, and he's well on his way to asking for $15 and then $20. And he will continue to increase his demands into eternity unless you authoritatively put your foot down and say, "That is enough." And hold to it.

This is precisely what is happening with today's extremist incarnation of the Republican Party. They have become too damned used to getting their way. They keep dragging Democrats farther and farther to the right, and weak-kneed liberals and moderates (and a few Democrats who are philosophically not that far away from the Flea Party crazies) continue to accommodate them, thereby invariably causing "the goal posts to keep moving rightward."

Bill Maher said it best: "For 30 years, the Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved into a mental hospital."

Well, what happens when you continually compromise with residents of an asylum? Yep, eventually you wind up with your own suite.

And this is precisely what is going to happen unless Democrats, and particularly the Capitulator-in-Chief, draw the proverbial line in the sand, and, once and for all, say, "That is enough. No more. We're done."

In other words, I'm waiting to hear Democrats, especially the President, say, with firm conviction and no hesitation:

"We will NOT address budget issues unless tax increases for the rich and for corporations are front and center on the table, and the oil subsidies are eliminated once and for all. And all reductions to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits are absolutely off the table. We can address waste and inefficiency in these programs, as well as the overinflated costs of medical care, but we will not cut so much as one cent from benefits."

I'd like to hear those words come from our President and Democratic Congressmen and Women with the same certainty and confidence that you hear from the Town Crier (Speaker John Boehner) when he says that "tax increases are off the table" and demands "trillions of dollars in spending cuts" in return for voting to raise the debt ceiling, and from Senate Majority Leader and tortoise lookalike, Mitch McConnell, when he says that he will not agree to an increase in the debt limit unless it is accompanied by substantial cuts to Medicare.

This is what this country has been waiting to hear, Mr. President. Without it, we are lost.

I called in and spoke with Big Eddie yesterday morning (June 1st) and asked what he thought of the debt ceiling issue because we have been hearing from Lawrence and most everyone else that the failure to raise the limit would have cataclysmic, worldwide effects.

Ed wasn't quite as sure about this as everyone else seems to be so one probably has to defer to the majority in this situation. But there is a middle ground that solves the entire quandary, and, on this aspect of the problem, I fully agree with Ed, Lawrence, and just about everyone else on MSNBC:

Even though the freshmen Flea Baggers in Congress are completely clueless (in addition to being mean spirited and stupid) and would eagerly watch with unvarnished glee as we plummeted into the abyss of default, "old timers" like Boehner, McConnell and their contemporaries well know that would be too crazy, and they will never allow it to happen. Neither would their Wall Street masters permit them to wreck our economy. The masters reserve that right for themselves.

So the course is clear: If the GOP forces us to play "chicken" again, we have no choice but to accept the dare. But this time, we don't have the option of swerving off to the side of the road even at the last moment. As dangerous as it may be, we have to go all the way to the precipice. Because, if we don't, the demands of that spoiled child will never end until the wheels finally come off, and our beloved country careens off the cliff and plummets into the darkness below.