Summer on the Desert

Grab your coffee, I've got some bones to pick over on this summer desert. Our hotter than Mars landscape is littered with carcasses: the debt ceiling fiasco, powerful men like Murdoch, the blitherings of Right Wing nut Bachman and this from AlterNet this morning.

"In all, the Republican Party is possessed by a spirit of willful denial: aided and abetted by the right-wing media, Conservatives can bend the world to their wishes; reality is subject to their fantasies; any belief, however specious, is made true because they want it to be so. This is a pathology that extends both to the debt ceiling debate and the broader assault by conservatives on the country’s social safety net. Both are examples of a frightening pseudo religion called Free Market Fundamentalism—a faith based on a set of assumptions that are immune to interrogation, challenge or the collective weight of reality."

Chauncey DeVega is our guide on this archeological dig. He's the author of the above quote. He goes on to enumerate several myths the ultra-conservative Republican party holds as sacred.

1. The first is that this entire debt ceiling issue is nothing more than hot air coming from the Democrats. Not to worry, the rightists say, there's plenty of money and we can just shove this unhappy so-called crisis down the road to the future. It's all about the Dems trying to scare people. Chauncey writes: "a failure to resolve the debt ceiling crisis would be an unprecedented event in American history."

2. Remember this one from Ronnie's day? Supply side economics will cure all. As it turns out all those tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans haven't done much, if anything, to stimulate the economy. More accurately, they've played a role in the current crisis.

3. Oh yes, well this one will be familiar here in Wisconsin: Unions hurt the economy. Chauncey again on the Right's belief: "The way out of the Great Recession is to complete the destruction of the public sector workforce through a final demolition of unionized labor and the elimination of minimum wage laws." When, in fact, minimum wage laws actually stimulate the economy.

4. I heard this one on NPR not too long ago. The "job creators" (meaning the wealthy) are being and would further be punished by increases in taxes. These people and the corporations many of them run have historically paid the lowest taxes in the world! Andy and I pay more in taxes than most corporations! These are the folks who really did benefit from the bailouts, not you and me, the Common People.

5. Now this one just makes my blood boil over on the stove. Any increase in taxes on the wealthy would be "class warfare". Class warfare is happening in exactly the opposite manner of this statement. Like those individuals who cannot withstand the light of day because of their lies and constant behind-the-scenes behaviors but state that they are the ones who are wronged, this definition of class warfare is completely turned around. Do we not think it is clear class warfare to cut all social safety nets from under the Common People?

Chauncey speaks: "Yes, there is a class war in the United States. But it is being waged against the middle and working classes, where for the last 40 years the minimum wage has effectively decreased when controlled for inflation, and earnings have gone down when controlled for inflation—all in an era when highly favorable tax policies have encouraged unprecedented economic growth for the richest Americans."

What does this bode for our country when men like Gov. Walker and others across the country favored of this particular brand of fundamentalist economics refuse to move at all as we draw near to August 3rd? Chauncey ends his article with this.

"the Tea Party GOP has painted itself into a corner in the debt ceiling fight. Frighteningly, they may see no other option but to salt the earth and bring the temple down on the heads of the American people in order to prove the righteousness of their cause."

There will be more bones on the desert this summer I fear. Call, call, call, write and write some more. Email, tell your friends, beat the drums loudly. We The People must stand up and confront this monstrosity.

Power To All The Common People!