Well, I was hoping we wouldn’t get this far, but here we are.
For those of you that recall my last article on the debt ceiling crisis, I said that my last article would be titled either “Tango Down: US Debt Ceiling Crisis Averted” or “Grab Your Ankles: US Defaults on National Debt”.
Based on my title, I’m sure you can figure out which way I’m leaning on this one.
Since my last article, we’ve watched negotiations between the Vice President and Congress collapse, the President and Congress collapse, and Congress and Congress collapse. What makes that last part worse is that it’s not like it’s failed once. No, it’s worse than that. The House can’t agree with the Senate. House Republicans can’t agree with Senate Republicans. Democrats can’t agree with Republicans. And the House Republicans can’t agree with each other.
Scientists and philosophers have long debated over the answer to the question of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable wall. In Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, when the Super Sphinx asks Superman this question, Superman replies with “They surrender.”
Apparently no one in Congress reads comic books.
So far in these articles, I’ve been as unpartisan as I can be. I’ve presented the facts with very little commentary on who’s right or wrong. However, I’ve been incredibly disappointed at the media coverage of this crisis, so while we’re all getting nice and lubed up for our national ass-fucking to come, I’d like to call out a couple of the villains in this crisis.
First, the credit rating agencies, especially Standard and Poor’s. I get that you guys have a duty to rate things as you see them, and in fact I can understand why you would downgrade the United States. However, considering the absolute shit you guys stuck triple-A ratings on during the mortgage crisis, don’t you think you could cut us a break. As for Standard and Poor’s, you guys can fuck off. To quote President Abraham Lincoln, “Now you fucked up.” You leaked information to investors that a $4 trillion cut was what you were looking for, without making it publicly available. That’s called insider trading, and it’s illegal. I hope the SEC leaves a hanger on the stove for, like, 40 minutes, and sticks it in Standard and Poor’s ass real slow, like *ssssssss*.
While we’re talking about groups of people I’d like to stick in the ass real slow with a hanger that’s been left on the stove for, like, 40 minutes, how about the media!? The media in this country has become so obsessed with being portrayed as partisan that it’s enabling borderline insanity on one side of the political aisle. To borrow from the New York Times’ Paul Krugman, if 99 people said the world is round and 1 person said the world is flat, the media would portray it as “Experts disagree on the shape of the planet.” One side of the political spectrum has gone completely off the deep end and is now threatening the global economy with a weapon of mass destruction, and you’re saying that both sides are equally to blame. The entire purpose of establishing the press as the Fourth Estate was to keep these things from happening. If the media is being portrayed as being “too liberal”, then it’s because reality is too liberal.
Switching gears, how about Congress? For anyone that’s ever watched the musical 1776, John Adams has a great quote: “I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more are called a Congress.” I get that there are sharp partisan differences between parties, but that’s the way it’s always been. There’s this thing called compromise, where both parties agree to do things that are distasteful for the good of the country. Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly encourage compromise. We fucking love that shit.
There’s a bigger villain within Congress though: the Republican Party. For thirty years you guys have been excluding anyone that isn’t an old white Christian upper-class male. It’s easier to say that than list all the groups you have excluded. But hey, I got a few minutes, so let’s take a stab at it!
- African-Americans
- Latinos
- Immigrants
- Gays
- The Poor
- The Middle Class
- Women
- Jews
- Muslims
- The Young
Please, let me know if I’m forgetting any. For the last thirty years the Grand Old Party has been slowly but surely reducing it’s share of the voting populace to almost nothing. Instead, you guys have been courting the most radical, extreme elements of your party because it’s the only way you can keep getting elected to anything above dog catcher.
You people are the reason we’re here today. After thirty years of exclusion, after thirty years of a shrinking base, the GOP had only the crazies left to turn to. In the past, the powers that be have been able to handle the crazies; throw a little token legislation their way to placate them and grease the gears of government. This time, you guys overreached big time. You tapped into a power you can’t control. You fed the gremlins after midnight. Now the House GOP caucus is intransigent, unwilling and unable to compromise. The House GOP has, essentially, been taken over by Domestic Terrorists. Ultimately though, for as odious as the Republican Party is, it’s not the root cause of this issue.
Our main villain, our big bad, is none other than the President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama.
Oh, President Obama! Why did you have to be born to a black father and white mother? Why did they have to name you something that sounds vaguely Muslim, and not really all that American? Why did your upbringing have to shape you into a Democrat? Why did you have to marry a black woman, and have two lovely black kids? Why did you have to win the Presidency, and beat an old white man and a hockey mom to do it?
President Obama is our villain here. If he had just been born a white man with an all-American name like “Ronald Reagan”, a white wife and white kids, and been a Republican, and managed to beat a black woman with a gay Latino running mate for President, we never would have been in this mess.
