This item was written by Matt Taibbi who is one of the few investigative journalists left in the country.
Had a friend send me this article by former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren under the subject line, “Informative reading for tonight’s Republican showcase.” I’m probably late in seeing it, but Lofgren’s piece raises fascinating and terrifying questions about the future of our political system and the increasing possibility that we are headed toward something like a civil war, or a constitutional crisis.
Lofgren, in describing the reasons for his defection from the Republican party, describes a Republican camp that increasingly acts not like a traditional peacetime political organization, but more like an apocalyptic cult or one of the authoritarian movements from early 20th century European history.
[…]
As Lofgren notes, this was insurrectionary, revolutionary behavior. Only the massive scale of the gambit prevented it from being easily identified as terrorism and criminal blackmail. If in exchange for not defaulting on our debt Boehner, Hensarling, Cantor and the rest of them had asked for a billion dollars worth of gold bullion deposited in Swiss bank accounts, or the release of a dozen Baader-Meinhofs from German prisons, it could hardly have been much different from what they actually did.
[…]
Had Obama invoked emergency powers to raise the debt limit unilaterally – and I think he had good reasons to do that – we might have had a revolt on our hands.Most people aren’t thinking about this because we’re so accustomed to thinking of America as a stable, conservative place where politics is not a life-or-death affair but more something that people like to argue about over dinner, as entertainment almost. But it’s headed in another, more twisted direction. I’m beginning to wonder if this election season is going to be one none of us ever forget – a 1968 on crack.
Whether you are on the left or right, is it not obvious that this country is not working?
I think while we can think of many different arguments/issues it all comes down to wealth distribution doesn’t it? Regardless of how it happens–societies don’t function when the top 1 percent own 25% of a society. Can’t that safely be understood regardless? REGARDLESS of one’s politics/religion/wealth/philosophy?
Look at history. How long do societies with extreme wealth disparities last? At its most basic, how many people will choose to starve to death while a few others throw food to their dogs? Up it a notch, how many people will put up with tv’s in the unemployment line while others have T-3 lines? Up it to what we have today: how many will put up with not having a job, healthcare, a retirement, a social safety net while a few move to cut capital gains and inheritance tax to zero? REGARDLESS of what you think, wide disparities are not tolerated for ever.
The real question then should be how to moderate the conditions to something that is acceptable. Today, Obama who is republican light and the Party of the SuperRich are only debating how slow/fast to continue the already inequitable transfer.
How is that not obvious to one and all REGARDLESS of party affiliation?
How indeed.
Celebrity Reality Shows, Sports, Wars, Class Warefare will only divert the masses for so long.
America: RIP.
“cult or … authoritarian movement”
i.e. The Democratic Party?
#28 More blather. You seem to create your own topic and respond to it. You are a strange bird.
Anyway, the current crop of corndog sucking Teabaggers and GOP’ers will likely get their ass handed to them (again) in 2012. Competing for biggest asshole of the bunch is already turning off the ‘normal’ Republicans.
Your threats to execute me and bring harm to the president is duly noted. You can change your name here but Dvorak is sending your IP info to the CIA.
I expect plans for a double tap is under way since you’re a snort of coke away from shooting up another museum.
#40–Lynn==thank you. Its good to know I can express myself at the Freshman College Level. So many here don’t—they walk around in a FOG still spouting partisan crap for all their lives are worth==and indeed, that is about all it is worth.
We were talking about Cake over on Epicurious and I was touting the benefits of my GTXpress dual well baker. I can make individual servings of cake using traditional box mixes or as I now do by making my own cake mix. when making my own, I use only half the sugar and remove all the oil, then I add oat flour and ground flax seed. Still not a health food, but yes, I think I could live on it.
Baking as a hobby has taught me how so VERY SIMILAR all the flour based baking is. Bread so close to Cake so close to fudge so close to wall paste, scones, flat bread and so forth. All the same stuff–just different proportions.
Kinda like American Political Parties and organized crime and the street goons that support them. Same Ideas. Just different proportions.
Yea, verily.
Ah crap. Its just Alfie.
Ha, ha.
# 27 Dallas:
“[…] The 5% elite now own 90% of the wealth. That’s a distribution calling for some ass whooping by the remaining midfle class before the elite succeed in turning America into a Venezuela.”
Your analogy doesn’t go nearly far enough. Venezuela? Venezuela is doing GREAT compared to the U.S. Turning America into Haiti is more like it.
Haiti is officially the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but in a decade or two the U.S. could give them a run for the title.
Random thought: Eisenhower, one of the best, most effective presidents of the last 60 years, would be completely ostracized by today’s Republican Party.
Bobbo regulations are almost always put into place after the fact. Clean air, water, safe drinking water act, and endangered species laws are perfect examples. Your example of the salmon fishery is a great example. The regulations were put into place after the collapse of the fish stocks. The collapse was due to over fishing which could have been regulated and wasn’t and the construction of hydroelectric dams and habitat loss where regulation came to late. So jobs were lost prior to the regulations not because of them. Another example asbestos production were jobs lost due to regulation? or were they lost because the use of asbestos presented health risks that outweighed its beneficial use? The restrictions on asbestos created jobs for asbestos abatement companies. You appear to be seeing causality where it does not necessarily exist.
45 alfie so you still haven’t found a single example to back up your statement, and you have given up trying, not that I suspect you tried very hard other than to toe the t party line. When do the bible versus start? Do the rest of the country a favor nominate a perry/bachman ticket now and get your failure over with.
So basically the Sanhedrin is alive and well.
It would have been a good idea for Obama to claim emergency powers and ignore the House to borrow money. I would have loved it if he had used his speechmaking powers to get people to lend trillions to America that didn’t have to be paid back.
#49–SoWhat==excellent debating point, but with your evident intellect and grasp on reality, can you think of any regulatory events BEFORE a subject collapse that result in the loss of jobs. Let me start thinking right NOW:….OK, took 5 seconds: the stem cell regulations restricting research to only those already in existence thereby preventing research into more areas of inquiry. Obviously, jobs lost in the area of stem cell research.
There could only be 1000’s of more examples. So What–turn away from using your intellect to close your mind. Use it to open your mind. You see the difference?
Interesting your complaint only shows the deleterious effect of lack of regulations and yet regulations are touted as job killers…..but as I said===yes because they should be used that way as UNREGULATED jobs are mostly fraudulent or injurious to the public.
Like candy from a baby. Or a soiled diaper from Alfie. Alfie: do better.
Yea, verily.
Ah Crap! Its just Alfie again…..but a link? could it be a video of his two boys playing tennis?
Ha, ha.
#48–Patso==I came across this link in a discussion with a conservative group I harpoon regularly. It states the top 5% control 69 % of the wealth of the USA. It came up in a discussion where the Pukes were upset that 50% of people don’t pay any income tax at all.
Hard to believe people can be that stupid===but the Pukes are. I’m probably losing a long list of old family friends….but f**k em if they are that stupid.
Have to add up the pie chart:
http://mybudget360.com/top-1-percent-control-42-percent-of-financial-wealth-in-the-us-how-average-americans-are-lured-into-debt-servitude-by-promises-of-mega-wealth/
Why bobbo nice try but cite the regulation, hmmm I don’t see one. Exactly what job was lost, hmmm don’t see that either. Guess it wasn’t that good a try.
Tell you what here’s a link to the Code of Federal Regulations.
http://tinyurl.com/x9q7
Since environmental regulations always seem to be the “job killers” You can start with Title 40.
I await your findings with baited breath.
Organized religion pays NO taxes ZERO taxes. Organized religion and organized GOPacs pay NO taxes ZERO taxes. Corporations are NOT people and should not get constitutional rights and protections. If they are to be treated as citizens then why are there NO Wall Street criminals in jail? Bernie Madoff had to turn HIMSELF in or else he would be still be in power.
Let me see if I got this right, the Demoncrats violate the Constitution’s prohibition of anyone but the House setting the budget and it’s amount. The same argument that the leftist whores are using for the President Hussein’s upsuring the Contitution can be used for anything, all he has to do is encure an expense and then say’s it’s a legal debt and appropriate the money without Congress’s approval. Just like the ‘Interstate Commerce Clause’ the Demoncrats and Republicrat Globalist would use the for everything and anything.
That is grounds for impeachment and trail for treason.
Whatever……………………………….
Traaxx
alfie, exactly which regulation would the story be referring to? Hmmm the story says “could” not will or would. Try again.
#59–So What==reversing direction from intelligent to stupid is only advised when trying to win a Puke Nomination. Not so in a reasoned dialectic. Maybe you could see what is plain to everyone else and right in front of you if you pulled your head out of your ass?
A shitty job I’m not interested in doing. Call your Mommy. She’s obviously spent years at the other end.
Doesn’t even make sense. We need more jobs in the USA, we need effective enforcement of appropriate regulations. We need more taxation of the rich and corporations, we need a transition to green energy, we need to promote science and new business formation and on and on as various liberal platforms outline. Going “back” to unicorns, no taxes, and good christians white males controlling the universe ain’t gonna cut it in today’s world.
Alfie, speaking of ain’t cutting it, really? You can’t rickroll me on your brothers playing tennis anymore. You need a new shtick. You can do it. I know you can. give So What a model on which he can reform his Alfie like refusal to admit to common sense. You two could even play those twits. Who would win?
#13 — What jobs have been killed by regulations?
Golly, where do I begin…. Do I discuss the $5 billion invested by an oil company to drill off Alaska, only to be killed by an arbitrary ruling from an oversite committee? Or how about Boeing being forbidden from building a plant in South Carolina by NLRB. Or all of those “shovel ready jobs” that aren’t shovel ready becasue it takes 5 years to work through all of the environmental red tape.
How about this one, because it’s a story repeated all over the country….
Power company completes the required paper work and environmental studies and receives an air permit to build a coal-fired power plant. After the permit is granted an environmental activist group challenges the permit because the company didn’t consider a different process technology as part of their BACT. Five years later, they are given permission by the regulators to go ahead with the project, but then they are sued by the same environmental group because they didn’t comply with environmental regs that say construction must begin within 3 years of getting their air permit.
When the company started the paper work over again, the environmental group insisted that they must now consider CO2 controls in their BACT due to new rules implemented by Obama’s EPA. Power company said, “fuck this” and walked away.
Why booboo you sound more like alfie every day. I am just holding alfie to the same evidential process he uses when discussing evolution. The fact that you intruded on a conversation and can’t keep up is not my problem. Now go back and play in your little sandbox with the rest of the little trolls.
67 At least 40 shovel ready projects being constructed right now in the region of the state I work in, 30 different counties. Another 115 in process with the money in place.
Your coal fired power plant and Boieng construction are not regulatory they are legal obstructions by independent parties not regulators so blame the lawyers. Obama shelved the air pollution regulations your talking about last week.
Additionally had bush jr. not withdrawn the CMOM regulation prior to implementation Missouri would have been able to use another 800 million in stimulus funding for long term remediation of collection systems throughout the state for the next 20 or so years. That would have created a large number of construction projects that never happened due to a lack of regulation.
Last post for the night I promise. Those air pollution regulations that your talking about were from bush jr. not Obama. The regulations that he intended were never promulgated as regulations into the federal code as such they never went into affect.
#71 quit sucking Chavez’s corndog. He is in power because the elite killed the middle class like the GOP is doing here. I’m rich and worried.
Alfie:
I should point out that anything that a whole bunch of us out here consider stuff cobbed from any version of the Bible (or the Koran, or any other “religious” text) has very little to do with life in the 2000s.
If you’re going to use religious texts, know that most of the world don’t pay much attention to them. There’s probably far more interest in Rock ‘N Roll, country music, or classical music.
If Republicans are dragging America towards a Civil War, that will go well with the draft we were told to expect if Bush is reelected.
It could be worse. The federal government forbids Boeing to build aircraft in South Carolina in order to protect union jobs in Washington state.
However Obama GUARANTEED to the Brazilian president that Boeing will “will provide a full transfer of technology to Brazil if the U.S.-based company wins a $5 billion fighter-jet bid.”
CBS no longer has the article, but thanks to Google’s cache you can see it right here: http://tinyurl.com/3uf9yvz
Now that’s hope and change you can believe in. LOL. 🙂
Man, I ususally like Matt’s work, but I can;t believe he fell in with this one. Talk about astroturfing.
#77–Guyver==so whats your beef?
Do you think employers should be able to close plants in retaliation for union activity?
Do you think Boeings technology is worth multiples of the profit on 5 Billion, and if you do, at what price was Europe willing to provide the technology?
ain’t reality a bitch?===although, I don’t think its much of an issue for you.
Ha, ha.
#65
Yeah! TeaDud said so, then quoted a bible verse.
What more proof do you want?
79, Bobbo,
All employers should have the right to open / close plants in places looking for investment from employers (regardless of what any union may say).
Let the free market decide; not Obamanomics.
Strange how you defend not letting a plant open up in South Carolina to provide for more U.S. jobs, but you seem indifferent to relocating jobs to Brazil. 🙂